Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hearing Thresholds, Speech Recognition, and Audibility as Indicators for Modifying Intervention in Children With Hearing Aids

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine if traditional audiologic measures (e.g., pure-tone average, speech recognition) and audibility-based measures predict risk for spoken language delay in children who are hard of hearing (CHH) who use hearing aids (HAs). Audibility-based measures included the Speech Intelligibility Index (SII), HA use, and auditory dosage, a measure of auditory access that weighs each child’s unaided and aided audibility by the average hours of HA use per day. The authors also sought to estimate values of these measures at which CHH would be at greater risk for delayed outcomes compared with a group of children with typical hearing (CTH) matched for age and socioeconomic status, potentially signaling a need to make changes to a child’s hearing technology or intervention plan. Design: The authors compared spoken language outcomes of 182 CHH and 78 CTH and evaluated relationships between language and audiologic measures (e.g., aided SII) in CHH using generalized additive models. They used these models to identify values associated with falling below CTH (by > 1.5 SDs from the mean) on language assessments, putting CHH at risk for language delay. Results: Risk for language delay was associated with aided speech recognition in noise performance (<59% phonemes correct, 95% confidence interval [55%, 62%]), aided Speech Intelligibility Index (SII < 0.61, 95% confidence internal [.53,.68]), and auditory dosage (dosage < 6.0, 95% confidence internal [5.3, 6.7]) in CHH. The level of speech recognition in quiet, unaided pure-tone average, and unaided SII that placed children at risk for language delay could not be determined due to imprecise estimates with broad confidence intervals. Conclusions: Results support using aided SII, aided speech recognition in noise measures, and auditory dosage as tools to facilitate clinical decision-making, such as deciding whether changes to a child’s hearing technology are warranted. Values identified in this article can complement other metrics (e.g., unaided hearing thresholds, aided speech recognition testing, language assessment) when considering changes to intervention, such as adding language supports, making HA adjustments, or referring for cochlear implant candidacy evaluation.
Evaluation of Social Determinants of Health and Prostate Cancer Outcomes Among Black and White Patients

Key Points Question Is the interaction between race and social determinants of health (SDOH) associated with racial disparities in prostate cancer outcomes? Findings This meta-analysis of 47 studies and 1 019 908 patients compared prostate cancer–specific mortality (PCSM) and overall survival between Black and White men. In studies with minimal accounting for SDOH, Black patients had significantly higher PCSM than White patients; however, Black men had significantly lower PCSM in studies with greater accounting for SDOH. Meaning This study suggests that the interaction between race and SDOH is significantly associated with racial disparities in health care; collecting and assessing SDOH variables in research may help to create strategies that increase health equity.
Generalized forms and Einstein’s equations

Generalized differential forms of different types are defined and their algebra and calculus are discussed. Complex generalized p-forms, a particular class of type two generalized forms, are considered in detail. It is shown that Einstein’s vacuum field equations for Lorentzian four-metrics are satisfied if and only if a complex generalized one-form on the bundle of two component spinors is closed. A similar result for half-flat and anti self-dual holomorphic four-metrics is also presented.
Recent advances towards reducing the meshing and re-meshing burden in computational sciences

Various numerical methods are used in engineering analysis, among which the finite element method (FEM) is the most prominent. This method relies heavily on a mesh structure, and the generation of this mesh generation accounts for about 80% of a typical analysis time for practical engineering problems. Various ideas have been proposed in the literature to avoid these problems by either simplifying this mesh generation process, or relaxing some of the constraints associated with the very presence of a mesh. This paper reviews recent advances in this direction by focusing on what the authors consider the most versatile and prominent approaches to overcome the mesh burden in computational science, namely: * Meshfree methods (MMs) somewhat reduce the constraints posed by the mesh by generalizing the concept of elements, simplifying. * Isogeometric analysis whose focus is to closely tie the geometry, i.e. computer aided design data to the analysis, e.g. FEM by using the same functions for both. If alterations to the geometry are required, the FE model is automatically modified, without changing the mesh, which greatly simplifies the design iterations. * The extended/generalized FEM (X/GFEM) where one of the aims is to increase the independence between the problem solved and the mesh. These methods are particularly attractive as they afford the modelling of crack propagation without remeshing. Inclusions and holes as well as the domain boundary can also be treated independently of the mesh. * Geometry independent methods, implicit meshing, immersed FEM, immersed boundary, fictitious domain/fixed grid FEM are alternatives to the FEM where the geometrically complex domain is implicitly embedded in a much simpler domain which is easily meshed using a regular, Cartesian grid. Geometry independent techniques have been used both in the context of finite volume method (FVM) and FEM. The literature on this type of technique goes back, according to, to the 1960s in the Russian language publication by Saulev and have subsequently been applied in different fields. Among other references in each discipline, we can mention applications in acoustics, fluid dynamics and fluid structure interaction, biomechanics, convection diffusion, optimization, etc. * Strain smoothing in finite elements allows decreasing the negative effects of mesh distortion. These methods have been used to solve a variety of mechanics problems including plates, shells, cracking, and three-dimensional viscoelastic deformation. The main goal of these methods is to rely on simplex meshes (tetrahedral, triangles) which are easier to generate than the more robust and accurate hexahedral meshes, and to do so without sacrificing accuracy. The relative merits and shortcomings of these methods are critically reviewed and a few examples are given for illustrative purposes. Other methods which are not covered here include the boundary element method and the scaled boundary finite element method.
Calmodulin Mutations in Human Disease

ABSTRACT Calcium ions (Ca2+) are the basis of a unique and potent array of cellular responses. Calmodulin (CaM) is a small but vital protein that is able to rapidly transmit information about changes in Ca2+ concentrations to its regulatory targets. CaM plays a critical role in cellular Ca2+ signaling, and interacts with a myriad of target proteins. Ca2+-dependent modulation by CaM is a major component of a diverse array of processes, ranging from gene expression in neurons to the shaping of the cardiac action potential in heart cells. Furthermore, the protein sequence of CaM is highly evolutionarily conserved, and identical CaM proteins are encoded by three independent genes (CALM1-3) in humans. Mutations within any of these three genes may lead to severe cardiac deficits including severe long QT syndrome (LQTS) and/or catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT). Research into disease-associated CaM variants has identified several proteins modulated by CaM that are likely to underlie the pathogenesis of these calmodulinopathies, including the cardiac L-type Ca2+ channel (LTCC) CaV1.2, and the sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ release channel, ryanodine receptor 2 (RyR2). Here, we review the research that has been done to identify calmodulinopathic CaM mutations and evaluate the mechanisms underlying their role in disease.
X-ray bursts from 4U 1705-44 - Another case of burst properties dependent on the strength of the persistent emission

Three Exosat observations are reported of the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1705-44 during which X-ray bursts are detected. Seventeen bursts are recorded in the low-intensity state and seven bursts in the medium-intensity state, of which 22 are suitable for a detailed analysis. Correlations between the burst properties and the strength of the persistent emission are found, and the results are presented. The results are interpreted in the context of accretion rate-dependent changes in the composition of the nuclear fuel. Leakage of nuclear energy between bursts is required to explain the burst fluences in the medium-state bursts. 26 refs.
Effects of access to feed, water, and a competitive exclusion product in the hatcher on some immune traits and gut development in broiler chickens

ABSTRACT 1. This study evaluated the effect of access to feed, water, and the competitive exclusion (CE) product Broilact®, administered in the hatcher, on broiler performance, caecal microbiota development, organ development, intestinal morphology, serum levels of IgY and vaccine-induced antibody responses. 2. In total, 250 chicks were hatched in a HatchCareTM hatcher and divided into four groups, given access to feed, water and the CE product sprayed on the chicks (CEs); access to feed, water, and the CE product in water (CEw); access to feed and water (Cpos); or no access to feed and water (Cneg) in the hatcher. 3. At the research facility, 10 chicks per hatching treatment were euthanised for organ measurements. The remaining 200 chicks were randomly distributed to 20 pens. On d 11, all birds were vaccinated against avian pneumovirus (APV). Three focal birds per pen were blood-sampled weekly for quantification of IgY and serum antibodies to APV. On d 11 and 32, two birds per replicate pen were euthanised for organ measurements and sample collection. Feed intake and body weight were recorded weekly. 4. Delayed access to feed and water reduced weight gain and feed intake early in life. At the end of the study, no differences in body weight remained. 5. There were some early effects on organs, with depressed intestinal development and higher relative gizzard weight for the Cneg group at placement. No treatment effects on the immune traits measured were detected. 6. The relative abundance of seven bacterial genera differed between treatment groups at d 11 of age. The results suggested that chickens are capable of compensating for 40 h feed and water deprival post-hatch. Provision of Broilact® did not have any persistent performance-enhancing properties, although different outcomes under rearing conditions closer to commercial production cannot be ruled out.
Identification of small inhibitors for human Metadherin, an oncoprotein, through Insilco approach.

AIMS Cancer is a disease that takes lives of thousands of people each year. There are more than 100 different types of cancers known to man. This fatal disease is one of the leading causes of death today. BACKGROUND Astrocyte elevated gene-1(AEG-1)/ Metadherin (MTDH) activates multiple oncogenic signaling pathways and leads to different types of cancers. MTDH interacting with staphylococcal nuclease domain containing 1(SND1) supports the survival and growth of mammary epithelial cells under oncogenic conditions. OBJECTIVE Silencing MTDH or SND1 individually or disrupting their interaction compromises the tumorigenic potential of tumor-initiating cells. The aim of our present study was to investigate novel interactions of staphylococcal nuclease domain containing 1 (SND1) binding domain of AEG-1/MTDH with different lead compounds through molecular docking approach using MOE software. METHOD Molecular docking was done by docking the ChemBridge database against important residues of MTDH involved in interaction with SND1. After docking the whole ChemBridge database, the top 200 interactive compounds were selected based on docking scores. After applying Lipinski's rule, all the remaining chosen compounds were studied on the basis of binding affinity, binding energy, docking score and protein-ligand interactions. Finally, 10 compounds showing multiple interactions with different amino acid residues were selected as the top interacting compounds. RESULT Three compounds were selected for simulation studies after testing these compounds using topkat toxicity and ADMET studies. The simulation study indicated that compound 32538601 is a lead compound for inhibiting MTDH-SND1 complex formation. CONCLUSION These novels, potent inhibitors of MTDH-SND1 complex can ultimately help us in controlling cancer up to some extent.
Disturbance smoother for state space models

SUMMARY This paper develops a method to evaluate the smoothed estimator of the disturbance vector in a state space model together with its mean squared error matrix. This disturbance smoother also leads to an efficient smoother for the state vector. Applications include a method to calculate auxiliary residuals for unobserved components time series models and an EM algorithm for estimating covariance parameters in a state space model.
Numerical analysis of electron-spin resonance in the spin-12XYmodel

This paper presents numerical results of the ESR absorption spectrum for S= ½ XY model in one dimension. We obtain detailed numerical results for a wide range of temperature and magnetic field for a large system of 400 sites, using the method developed by Derzhko et al. In the high-temperature regime, a similar behavior is observed for both the ferromagnet and the antiferromagnet; these line shapes have only one peak. On the other hand, in the low-temperature regime, line shapes show very different behaviors depending on the sign of the exchange coupling. While the line shape for the ferromagnet has only one peak as in the high-temperature regime, the line shape for antiferromagnet has two peaks and shows very strong magnetic-field dependence. We also discuss the physical meaning by comparing our numerical results with several theoretical results: the exact result in the high-temperature limit, Kubo-Tomita theory, field theory, mean-field theory, and elementary excitations.
Phase‐regularized and displacement‐regularized compressed sensing for fast magnetic resonance elastography

Liver magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is a noninvasive stiffness measurement technique that captures the tissue displacement in the phase of the signal. To limit the scanning time to a single breath‐hold, liver MRE usually involves advanced readout techniques such as simultaneous multislice (SMS) or multishot methods. Furthermore, all these readout techniques require additional in‐plane acceleration using either parallel imaging capabilities, such as sensitivity encoding (SENSE), or k ‐space undersampling, such as compressed sensing (CS). However, these methods apply a single regularization function on the complex image. This study aims to design and evaluate methods that use separate regularization on the magnitude and phase of MRE to exploit their distinct spatiotemporal characteristics. Specifically, we introduce two compressed sensing methods. The first method, termed phase‐regularized compressed sensing (PRCS), applies a two‐dimensional total variation (TV) prior to the magnitude and two‐dimensional wavelet regularization to the phase. The second method, termed displacement‐regularized compressed sensing (DRCS), exploits the spatiotemporal redundancy using 3D total variation on the magnitude. Additionally, DRCS includes a displacement fitting function to apply wavelet regularization to the displacement phasor. Both DRCS and PRCS were evaluated with different levels of compression factors in three datasets: an in silico abdomen dataset, an in vitro tissue‐mimicking phantom, and an in vivo liver dataset. The reconstructed images were compared with the full sampled reconstruction, zero‐filling reconstruction, wavelet‐regularized compressed sensing, and a low rank plus sparse reconstruction. The metrics used for quantitative evaluation were the structural similarity index (SSIM) of magnitude (M‐SSIM), displacement (D‐SSIM), and shear modulus (S‐SSIM), and mean shear modulus. Results from highly undersampled in silico and in vitro datasets demonstrate that the DRCS method provides higher reconstruction quality than the conventional compressed sensing method for a wide range of stiffness values. Notably, DRCS provides 24% and 22% increase in D‐SSIM compared with CS for the in silico and in vitro datasets, respectively. Comparison with liver stiffness measured from full sampled data and highly undersampled data (CR=4) demonstrates that the DRCS method provided the strongest correlation ( R2 =0.95), second‐lowest mean bias (−0.18 kPa, lowest for CS with −0.16 kPa), and lowest coefficient of variation (CV=3.6%). Our results demonstrate the potential of using DRCS to improve the reconstruction quality of accelerated MRE.
Monte Carlo sampling in dual space for approximating the empirical halfspace distance

The Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance is an important tool for constructing confidence sets and tests in univariate problems. In multivariate settings, an analogous role is played by the halfspace distance, which has the merit of being invariant under linear transformations. However, the evaluation of the halfspace distance between two samples is a computationally very intensive combinatorial problem even in moderate dimensions, which severely restricts the use of the halfspace distance, especially in resampling procedures. To approximate this distance in a fast and data-dependent way, the notion of a dual measure is introduced. Based on geometric concepts, it will be shown how the above problem can be put as a density estimation problem using Monte Carlo sampling in a certain dual space. A central limit theorem for the empirical halfspace distance is derived and used as a gauge to compare the new procedure with a traditional random search.
Pandemic news information uncertainty—News dynamics mirror differential response strategies to COVID-19

National differences in uncertainty, inequality, and trust have been accentuated by COVID-19. There are indications that the pandemic has impacted societies characterized by high uncertainty, inequality, and low trust harder than societies characterized by low uncertainty, equality, and high trust. This study investigates differential response strategies to COVID-19 as reflected in news media of two otherwise similar low uncertainty societies: Denmark and Sweden. The comparison is made using a recent approach to information dynamics in unstructured data. The main findings are that the news dynamics generally mirror public-health policies, capture fundamental socio-cultural variables related to uncertainty and trust, and may provide a measure of societal uncertainty. The findings can provide insights into evolutionary trajectories of decision-making under high uncertainty and, from a methodological level, be used to develop a media-based index of uncertainty and trust.
General Connections for the Form of Property Tensors in the 122 Shubnikov Point Groups

The 122 Shubnikov point groups (SPGs) are obtained from the 32 ordinary crystallographic point groups (OPGs) by taking time inversion into account. Like the OPGs, the SPGs can be grouped into 11 Laue classes. Tensors can be invariant under space inversion (s tensors), time inversion (t tensors), space–time inversion (u tensors) or all three inversions (i tensors). The restrictions imposed on the form of a property tensor by the SPG of the material under consideration depend, for i tensors, only on the Laue class of the SPG. If these restrictions are known for an i tensor, the corresponding restrictions for s, t and u tensors of the same rank and internal symmetry can be written down immediately for all the 122 SPGs and for all orientations in which the SPG under consideration appears in the corresponding holohedry. These connections provide tests for the forms of tensors given in the literature. A number of corrections and of possible simplifications are pointed out. The results are illustrated by showing how the form of the i tensor describing linear electrogyration determines the form of the piezoelectric t tensor and the piezomagnetic s tensor for all 122 SPGs. Similarly, the form of the t tensor describing quadratic electrogyration is derived explicitly from the i tensor describing the piezooptic effect.
Rapid Identification of Pseudomonas aeruginosa International High-Risk Clones Based on High-Resolution Melting Analysis

In this study, we designed a novel mini-MLST typing scheme for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Its great discriminatory power, together with ease of performance and short processing time, makes this approach attractive for prospective typing of large isolate sets. Integrating the novel P. aeruginosa molecular typing scheme enables the development and spread of MDR/XDR high-risk clones to be investigated. ABSTRACT The Pseudomonas aeruginosa population has a nonclonal epidemic structure. It is generally composed of a limited number of widespread clones selected from a background of many rare and unrelated genotypes recombining at high frequency. Due to the increasing prevalence of nosocomial infections caused by multidrug-resistant/extensively drug-resistant (MDR/XDR) strains, it is advisable to implement infection control measures. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) are considered the gold standard methods in bacterial typing, despite being limited by cost, staff, and instrumental demands. Here, we present a novel mini-MLST scheme for P. aeruginosa rapid genotyping based on high-resolution melting analysis. Using the proposed mini-MLST scheme, 3,955 existing sequence types (STs) were converted into 701 melting types (MelTs), resulting in a discriminatory power of D = 0.993 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.992 to 0.994). Whole-genome sequencing of 18 clinical isolates was performed to support the newly designed mini-MLST scheme. The clonal analysis of STs belonging to MelTs associated with international high-risk clones (HRCs) performed by goeBURST software revealed that a high proportion of the included STs are highly related to HRCs and have also been witnessed as responsible for serious infections. Therefore, mini-MLST provides a clear warning for the potential spread of P. aeruginosa clones recognized as MDR/XDR strains with possible serious outcomes. IMPORTANCE In this study, we designed a novel mini-MLST typing scheme for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Its great discriminatory power, together with ease of performance and short processing time, makes this approach attractive for prospective typing of large isolate sets. Integrating the novel P. aeruginosa molecular typing scheme enables the development and spread of MDR/XDR high-risk clones to be investigated.
Time scales and relaxation dynamics in quantum-dot lasers

We analyze a three-variable rate equation model that takes into account carrier capture and Pauli blocking in quantum dot semiconductor lasers. The exponential decay of the relaxation oscillations is analyzed from the linearized equations in terms of three key parameters that control the time scales of the laser. Depending on their relative values, we determine two distinct two-variable reductions of the rate equations in the limit of large capture rates. The first case leads to the rate equations for quantum well lasers, exhibiting relaxation oscillations dynamics. The second case corresponds to dots nearly saturated by the carriers and is characterized by the absence of relaxation oscillations.