Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magnitude of placebo response in clinical trials of paroxetine for vasomotor symptoms: a meta-analysis

Introduction Vasomotor symptoms, or hot flashes, are among the most common complaints for menopausal and postmenopausal women. As an alternative to hormone replacement therapy, paroxetine mesylate became the only non-hormonal treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), despite limited evidence for its efficacy. More specifically, there is uncertainty around paroxetine's unique benefit and the magnitude of the placebo response in clinical trials of paroxetine. Methods Relevant databases were searched to identify randomized clinical trials examining the efficacy of paroxetine to treat hot flashes. The primary outcomes of interest were hot flash frequency and hot flash severity scores. Data was extracted from the published results, and risk of bias assessments were conducted. Results Six randomized clinical trials that included a total of 1,486 women were coded and analyzed. The results demonstrated that 79% of the mean treatment response for hot flash frequency is accounted for by a placebo response, resulting in a mean true drug effect of 21% at most. Additionally, 68% of the mean treatment response for hot flash severity is accounted for by a placebo response, resulting in a maximum true drug effect of 32%. Discussion The results herein call into question the actual efficacy of the only FDA approved, non-hormonal treatment for hot flashes by demonstrating that a placebo response accounts for the majority of treatment responses for reductions in both hot flash frequency and severity. The findings provide evidence to reevaluate the use of paroxetine to treat postmenopausal hot flashes and emphasize the importance of considering effective, alternative treatments for vasomotor symptoms.
Viridantha minuscula (Tillandsioideae; Bromeliaceae), a new species from Guanajuato, Mexico

Viridantha minuscula from the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, is described and illustrated as new to science. The proposed taxon is compared to V. lepidosepala and V. tortilis, species with the most similarities. Images and a distribution map of the taxa involved are provided.
SSPool: A Simple Siamese Framework for Graph Infomax Pooling

Graph pooling plays an indispensable role in graph representation learning by aggregating the node representations on the graph into a compact form. However, the existing graph pooling models based on mutual information maximization all need to construct negative samples and usually only consider local neighborhood information. In this article, we propose a novel coarsening graph infomax pooling method called SSPool, which selects the most informative subset of nodes as the pooled graph by neural estimation of the mutual information between the coarsened graph and the augmented coarsening graph. To maximize the neural estimation of mutual information, we propose a self-attention-based top-k method to learn the coarsened graph, while we use edge perturbation to augment the coarsened graph and a simple Siamese network framework to help the coarsened graph to get a better representation. Extensive experimental results show that our method outperforms previous state-of-the-art methods on eight benchmark data sets.
MIFP: Selective Fat-Pointer Bounds Compression for Accurate Bounds Checking

Bounds compression for fat pointers can reduce the memory and performance overhead of maintaining pointer bounds and is necessary for efficient hardware implementation. However, compression can introduce inaccuracy to the bounds, making certain out-of-bounds accesses undetectable. Although the security threat can be mitigated by padding the objects, no known mitigations can detect these out-of-bounds accesses deterministically. We present MIFP, a method that automatically mixes both compressed and uncompressed bounds to preserve the performance benefits of bounds compression while ensuring accurate bounds checking. Given a program using a single fat pointer representation (e.g., all compressed bounds), MIFP performs whole-program analysis to expand potentially unsafe and inaccurate fat pointers such that they carry accurate uncompressed bounds. To minimize the number of pointers to expand, MIFP adds instrumentation on a per-allocation-site granularity; objects of the same type but different code allocation locations can have their pointer members transformed differently depending on how the pointers are used. We describe our algorithm and supporting data structures, and show that utilizing multiple fat-pointer representations reduces the runtime and memory overheads of uncompressed bounds by 79% and 93% respectively.
Posttraumatic growth in family members of individuals with methamphetamine use disorder

Objectives: This study aimed to determine post-traumatic growth and its predictors in female relatives of patients with methamphetamine use disorder. Methods: The volunteers in our study consisted of 80 adult women who were first-degree relatives of male patients diagnosed with MUD. The Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory, the Hospital Anxiety-Depression Scale, the Impact of Events Scale , and the short form of the Coping with Stressful Situations Inventory were given to the relatives of the patients. Results: In our study, being employed and being married were found to affect task-oriented coping and changes in self-perception positively. Task-oriented coping or seeking emotional support from others predicted higher PTG. Task-oriented coping was positively associated with emotional coping and a change in the philosophy of life. The regression analysis determined that task-oriented and avoidant coping mechanisms were the best predictors of post-traumatic growth. Conclusions: The findings suggest that environmental and personal factors, such as being married, being employed, and the quality of social relationships that emerge with emotional and instrumental support, influence the experience of life crises. In addition, the duration of methamphetamine uses, the problem's, and the search for solutions were all associated with higher post-traumatic growth. Thus, the results of this study demonstrate that task-oriented coping, seeking emotional support, and the duration of methamphetamine use may contribute to post-traumatic growth.
Propagation of Ultra High-Energy Cosmic Rays in light of the latest EBL constraints

Recent progress in measurements and modeling of the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) has placed considerable constraints on its spectral density. These constraints are particularly relevant for the propagation of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs), as in the past the EBL uncertainties have significantly impacted the result of simulations that aim at inferring source properties from the observed UHECR spectral and composition data. In this contribution, we show that the reduction in EBL uncertainties recently achieved makes their impact on the propagation of UHECRs subdominant
PESAC, the Generalized Framework for RANSAC-Based Methods on SIMD Computing Platforms

This paper focuses on the computational optimization of RANSAC. We describe the Parallel Efficient Sample Consensus (PESAC) framework that allows efficient utilization of SIMD extensions and provides memory locality due to a special way of storing the input sequence of correspondences and generating a batch of samples per one main loop iteration. It is inspired by the USAC framework and has a block structure capable of implementing most modern RANSAC-based methods. We enhance it with individual blocks of sample and model restrictors that are aimed at the rejection of “bad” samples and model hypothesis before time-consuming model computation and verification blocks. We also provide a detailed description implementing 2D homography estimation problem in PESAC and benchmark the running time on the MIDV-2020 dataset of identity documents. Comparing to naive implementation, we accelerated our framework by 122 times for the document classification task (with a 6% increase in accuracy) and by 18 times for document tracking (with a 46% decrease in tracking failure rate) by using both restrictors and vector processing. This version also outperformed a number of USAC implementations from OpenCV-4.6. 0 in runtime and accuracy of estimation (3 times faster, 6% greater accuracy for the classification task, and 2 times faster, 33% lower failure rate for tracking if comparing with USAC_MAGSAC).
Paediatric cataract surgery with 27G vitrectomy instrumentation: the Ghent University Hospital Experience

Objective To describe a cohort of paediatric patients who underwent unilateral or bilateral lens extractions at Ghent University hospital using the Dutch Ophthalmic Research Center (D.O.R.C.) ultra-short 27G vitrectomy system. Methods Retrospective analysis of the medical and surgical records of all children that underwent lens extraction between September 2016 and September 2020 using the D.O. R.C. ultra-short 27G vitrectomy system. Results Seventy-two eyes of 52 patients were included. The most important aetiologies in this study were of secondary (25.5%), developmental (13.7%), or genetic (13.7%) nature. No definitive cause could be established in more than a quarter of cases (27.5%) despite extensive work-up, them being deemed idiopathic. The remainder of cases (19.6%) was not assigned a final aetiologic designation at the time of the study due to contradicting or missing diagnostic data. This study could not identify any cataract cases related to infection or trauma. Surgical complications rate was 61.1% of which posterior capsule opacification was the most frequent with a rate of 25%. A significant short-term postoperative best-corrected visual acuity gain (≤ −0.2 LogMAR) was observed in 60.5% of eyes for which usable acuity data were available (n = 38). Conclusion Many different instruments and techniques have been described and used in the context of paediatric lens extractions, each with its advantages and disadvantages. This study illustrates that an ultra-short 27G vitrectomy system can be used to perform paediatric lens extractions with good surgical outcomes. Further studies and comparative trials are needed to ascertain this further.
Advances in CRISPR/Cas-Based Strategies on Zoonosis

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated (Cas) has emerged as the predominant technique for gene editing technique due to its high efficiency and low cost. In the area of zoonosis, CRISPR/Cas is also widely used in different research areas. This paper reviewed the principles of CRISPR/Cas technique and its applications in zoonosis. Moreover, we analyze the shortcomings and weaknesses that currently limit its use, highlight its direction for improvement, and foresee its application prospects in the prevention and treatment of zoonosis. For the purpose of preventing and controlling zoonosis, we need to develop diagnostic method with high sensitivity and specificity, highly protective vaccines, and also better understanding of the pathogenesis. Our review aimed to promote the application and improvement of CRISPR/Cas technique in the above-mentioned areas, and provide brief and comprehensive references for CRISPR/Cas-based research. Through reviewing the advances in CRISPR/Cas-based strategies on zoonosis, we believe that CRISPR/Cas technique will provide more powerful assistance for the prevention and control of zoonosis.
Percutaneous liver biopsy practice patterns among Canadian hepatologists.

BACKGROUND Percutaneous liver biopsy (PLB) is the standard procedure to obtain histological samples essential for the management of various liver diseases. While safe, many hepatologists no longer perform their own PLBs; the reasons for this practice shift are unknown. OBJECTIVE To describe the attitudes, practice patterns and barriers to PLB among hepatologists in Canada. METHODS A survey was distributed to all hepatologists in Canada. RESULTS Thirty-two of 40 (80%) hepatologists completed the survey; the majority of respondents were male (72%) and had been in practice for >5 years in an academic setting. Fifty-six per cent of hepatologists referred all PLBs to radiology, and only 19% of hepatologists reported performing their own PLBs most or all of the time. There were no sex differences nor were there differences based on years in practice. Fifty per cent of respondents who performed PLB routinely used ultrasound, and PLBs are performed in equal frequency in an ambulatory procedure area (50%) versus the endoscopy suite (36%). For almost one-half of hepatologists (47%), their performance of PLBs decreased in the past five years. The majority of respondents at an academic centre (75%) reported access to FibroScan (Echosens, France), and most estimated a resultant 25% to 50% reduction in the need for PLBs. Lack of resources, patient preference and suboptimal reimbursement were the most common reasons cited for not performing PLBs. CONCLUSION Most hepatologists in Canada do not perform PLBs to the extent that they did in the past, but refer to radiology. The reasons for this shift in practice include lack of resources, improved perception of safety and patient preference. Where available, FibroScan resulted in a perceived 25% to 50% reduction in required liver biopsies.
A Qualitative Study of the Benefits and Utility of Brief Motivational Interviewing to Reduce Sexually Transmitted Infections among Men Who Have Sex with Men

Several studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of motivational interviewing (MI) in reducing sexual risk behaviors. However, limited information is available on the acceptability of brief MI among men who have sex with men (MSM) in poor resource settings like sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this study was to assess the views of MSM about the benefits and utility of brief MI (bMI) in changing their risky behavior. A qualitative study among men who have sex with men (MSM) who were enrolled in a longitudinal observational study between December 2021 and May 2023. The setting was in Tshwane North and participants were scheduled for baseline, 6-month, and 12-month visits. All participants received 20 min one-on-one face-to-face brief motivational interview (bMI) sessions during their follow-up visits. At month 12, an exit interview was conducted with consenting conveniently sampled participants (n = 23) who had completed all scheduled visits and received three bMI sessions. The findings indicated that the most recalled conversation was related to multiple sexual partners, having sex under the influence of alcohol, and MSM learned more about sexually transmitted diseases. Many expressed being comfortable with the sessions because the counselor was respectful and non-judgmental. Most found the bMI sessions to have a positive impact on changing and reducing risky sexual behaviors, particularly it reportedly increased their use of condoms and reduced the number of multiple partners. MSM found the bMI to be useful and acceptable in reducing sexual risk behaviors among MSM.
Pengembangan Bahan Ajar Interaktif Menggunakan Google Slide Pada Materi Energi Kelas VII Semester Ganjil Kelas VII di SMP Negeri 8 Palangkaraya

Bahan ajar interaktif merupakan bahan-bahan ajar yang disusun secara sistematis komunikasi dua arah yang artinya bersifat aktif. Bahan ajar interaktif saling berintegrasi membantu guru berinteraksi dengan siswa. Bahan ajar interaktif menggunakan google slide menjadi solusi dalam pembelajaran pada masa pandemi. Google slide merupakan tool presentasi yang dibuat secara online yang dapat diakses melalui computer ataupun smartphone manapun dengan jaringan internet karena berbasis clound. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk: (1) mengetahui validitas bahan ajar interaktif menggunakan google slide pada materi energi kelas VII di SMP Negeri 8 Palangkaraya, (2) mengetahui respon siswa terhadap bahan ajar inetraktif menggunakan google slide pada materi energi kelas VII di SMP Negeri 8 Palangkaraya, (3) mengetahui hasil belajar siswa setelah menggunakan bahan ajar interaktif menggunakan google slide pada materi energi kelas VII di SMP Negeri 8 Palangkaraya. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah seluruh kelas VII SMP Negeri 8 Palangkaraya. Sampel yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah kelas VII-10 dengan jumlah 20 siswa. Instrumen yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah lembar angket validitas bahan ajar dan lembar angket respon siswa yang divalidasi oleh para ahli. Angket validitas bahan ajar interaktif dibuat sebanyak 18 kisi-kisi yang terbagi atas aspek materi dan aspek media. Angket respon siswa dibuat sebanyak 12 kisi-kisi. Hasil analisis data menunjukkan bahwa validitas bahan ajar untuk aspek materi diperoleh persentase 85,93 % dengan kriteria relevan dan aspek media diperoleh persentase 86,25 % dengan kriteria relevan. Respon siswa diberikan kepada 20 siswa diperoleh rata-rata persentase 86,97 % dengan kriteria sangat kuat. Hasil belajar siswa secara individual diperoleh 11 siswa yang tuntas (55%) dan 9 siswa yang tidak tuntas (45%).
The cross section of conditional mutual fund performance in European stock markets

This paper implements strategies that use macroeconomic variables to select European equity mutual funds, including Pan-European, country, and sector funds. We find that several macro-variables are useful in locating funds with future outperformance and that country-specific mutual funds provide the best opportunities for fund rotation strategies using macroeconomic information. Specifically, our baseline long-only strategies that exploit time-varying predictability provide four-factor alphas of 12–13% per year over the 1993–2008 period. Our study provides new evidence on the skills of local versus Pan-European asset managers, as well as how macroeconomic information can be used to locate and time these local fund manager skills.
Urban size, spatial segregation and educational outcomes

Ian Gordon and Vassilis Monastiriotis Department of Geography and Environment London School of Economics Published: August 2003 ISBN: 0 7530 1662 1 Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE Phone: 44 (0)20 7955 6180 Email: I.R. Gordon@lse.ac. uk
Impact of Cold Storage Temperature and Shelf Life on Ripening Physiology, Quality Attributes, and Nutritional Value in Apricots—Implication of Cultivar

This work aimed to investigate the storability potential of Orange Red and Orange Rubis apricots harvested at commercial maturity stage during cold storage (CS) at 1 or 5 °C for up to 28 days, followed by shelf life (SL) at 20 °C for 2 days. The variables evaluated included total soluble solids, titratable acidity, pH only at harvest, weight loss (WL), ethylene production rates, peel color, firmness, chilling injury incidence (CI), concentrations of total phenolics, flavonoids, carotenoids, total antioxidant capacity, b-carotene, b-cryptoxantine, and lutein. The main results showed that storage at 5 °C resulted in higher WL and CI symptoms than at 1 °C during both CS and SL, increased ethylene production during CS, whereas there was limited or no effect of CS temperatures on changes in firmness, color, and all antioxidants during CS. Firmness decreased abruptly soon after harvest in Orange Rubis, but progressively in the remaining samples of both cultivars during CS and SL. SL advanced fruit deterioration according to WL, CI, and softening. During SL, ethylene production increased in all samples. Orange Red exhibited higher ethylene rates during SL and antioxidant concentrations throughout CS and SL, by comparison. Conclusively, storage temperature at 1 °C retained WL, CI, and ethylene production, and both cultivars were marketable up to 21 days CS without SL or up to 14 days CS followed by SL, although Orange Rubis exhibited CI after 14 days, while Orange Red exhibited CI after 21 days of CS.
IOT Security for IOTMon Attacks Based on Devices’ app Description

Title: IOT Security for IOTMon Attacks Based on Devices’ app Description Author: Raghad Jameel A Alhazmi Thesis Advisor: Marius C. Silaghi, Ph.D. There are concerns associated with ”inter-app” interactions, which occur when many independently developed home automation apps interact and affect one another, causing possibly dangerous unexpected app action. We extended a security tool named IoTMon, an IoT device management system capable of identifying all potential cross-app communication paths and analyzing their danger status. As part of our work, we keep an eye on the app description and safeguard IoTMon from being altered in any way that could obscure the real interaction related to another app action. We validate the IoTMon system’s integrity by applying the hash algorithm SHA512 with digital signature on the system files to ensure that it is dependable in controlling inter-app interactions. The extended IoTMon was able to identify and fix 22 out of 92 apps that their descriptions had been altered. Our evaluation indicates that the user will be notified of either purposefully or unintentionally modification in the IoTMon.
A Controlled-Environment Quality Assessment of Android GNSS Raw Measurements

Raw Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements have been available since 2016 in select Android smartphones. The availability of such observations allows smartphones users, in principle, to significantly improve the quality of GNSS-based positioning by applying customized and advanced positioning algorithms. However, the quality of such measurements is poor, mainly because of the low quality of smartphone hardware components and the nonideal environment in which phones are typically used. To overcome this problem and to separate the contribution of the hardware components and signal quality, dedicated test campaigns were carried out in a real environment and in a controlled-environment anechoic chamber using several different Android models. In addition, signal-processing techniques aimed at increasing the accuracy and precision of the solution were employed. Results show that the quality of the data captured in the anechoic chamber was significantly better than in real conditions. Furthermore, such analysis allows to underline certain phenomena in smartphones, such as the duty cycle, and to test the validity of anechoic environments for Android raw measurements.
Liver transplant outcomes in HIV-infected patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis with synthetic cohort

Objectives:The relative success of liver transplantation in those with HIV compared to HIV-uninfected individuals remains a point of intense debate. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of liver transplantation in HIV-hepatitis co-infected patients using a meta-analysis and individual patient data meta-analysis as a synthetic cohort. Methods:We searched MEDLINE via PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, AIDSLINE (inception to 2010), AMED, CINAHL, TOXNET, Development and Reproductive Toxicology, Hazardous Substances Databank, Psych-info and relevant conferences. We included cohort studies and individual case-reports evaluating survival of co-infected transplant patients. We abstracted data on cohort and case demographics and outcomes. We pooled cohorts using a random-effects analysis and created a synthetic cohort of cases using individual patient data. We confirmed this with the pooled cohort analysis. Results:We included 15 cohort studies and 49 case series with individual patient data. At 12 months, 84.4% [95% confidence interval (CI) 81.1–87.8%] of patients had survived. Within the HIV-infected population evaluated, HIV–hepatitis B virus (HBV) co-infection was associated with optimal survival. In an adjusted model, individuals positive for HBV were 8.28 (95% CI 2.26–30.33) times more likely to survive when compared to those without HBV. Further, individuals with an undetectable HIV viral load at the time of transplantation were 2.89 (95% CI 1.41–5.91) times more likely to survive when compared to those with detectable HIV viremia. Hepatitis C virus was not a predictor of patient survival when adjusted for by other key predictors [0.54 (95% CI 0.17–1.80)].