Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OMERACT Endorsement of Patient-reported Outcome Instruments in Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody–associated Vasculitis

Objective. The antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody–associated vasculitides (AAV) are multiorgan diseases. Patients with AAV report impairment in their health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and have different priorities regarding disease assessment compared with physicians. The Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) Vasculitis Working Group previously received endorsement for a core set of domains in AAV. Two approaches to measure patient-reported outcomes (PRO) were presented at OMERACT 2016. Methods. A novel 5-step tool was used to facilitate assessment of the instruments by delegates: the OMERACT Filter 2.0 Instrument Selection Algorithm, with a red-amber-green checklist of questions, including (1) good match with domain (face and content validity), (2) feasibility, (3) do numeric scores make sense (construct validity)? , (4) overall ratings of discrimination, and (5) can individual thresholds of meaning be defined? Delegates gave an overall endorsement. Three generic Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) instruments (fatigue, physical functioning, and pain interference) and a disease-specific PRO, the AAV-PRO (6 domains related to symptoms and HRQOL), were presented. Results. OMERACT delegates endorsed the use of the PROMIS instruments for fatigue, physical functioning, and pain interference (87.6% overall endorsement) and the disease-specific AAV-PRO instrument (89.4% overall endorsement). Conclusion. The OMERACT Vasculitis Working Group gained endorsement by OMERACT for use of the PROMIS and the AAV-PRO in clinical trials of vasculitis. These instruments are complementary to each other. The PROMIS and the AAV-PRO need further work to assess their utility in longitudinal settings, including their ability to discriminate between treatments of varying efficacy in the setting of a randomized controlled trial.
Serum levels of GPER-1 in euthymic bipolar patients

Introduction Estrogen and its receptors have been suggested as playing a role in the pathogenesis of bipolar disorder (BD). Estrogen functions through the estrogen receptors alpha and beta and the recently discovered G-protein–coupled estrogen receptor-1 (GPER-1). The aim of this study was to evaluate serum GPER-1 levels in euthymic BD patients. Patients and methods The study population consisted of 38 euthymic outpatients meeting the criteria for BD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition and 35 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Medical histories were obtained and physical examinations and laboratory tests conducted. Results Serum GPER-1 levels were measured in both patients and controls and found to be significantly higher in the BD patients than in controls. These results were not influenced by the medications in use. Conclusion The results of this study demonstrated that GPER-1 may play a role in BD pathophysiology.
Costs and effectiveness of influenza vaccination: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND Seasonal influenza can cause a significant public health burden. Vaccination is proposed as the most effective measure to prevent influenza and related undesired outcomes. OBJECTIVE To estimate the efficiency of influenza vaccination. METHODS A literature review of economic evaluations of influenza vaccinations, published over the last 5 years, was performed using MEDLINE (through PubMed), Web of Science and Scopus. RESULTS 935 papers were identified and 30 were selected, including studies performed in different population subgroups: general population, children, adults, elderly, pregnant women and high risk patients. Twenty-one studies were performed in Europe and in US. The majority of the studies were carried out on elderly patients and children. All except one were cost-effectiveness analyses and reported influenza vaccination as a cost-saving or cost-effective intervention. CONCLUSIONS Vaccination strategies are economically favourable in a range of countries and sub-groups of patients.
Production of Transgenic-Cloned Pigs Expressing Large Quantities of Recombinant Human Lysozyme in Milk

Human lysozyme is a natural non-specific immune factor in human milk that plays an important role in the defense of breastfed infants against pathogen infection. Although lysozyme is abundant in human milk, there is only trace quantities in pig milk. Here, we successfully generated transgenic cloned pigs with the expression vector pBAC-hLF-hLZ-Neo and their first generation hybrids (F1). The highest concentration of recombinant human lysozyme (rhLZ) with in vitro bioactivity was 2759.6 ± 265.0 mg/L in the milk of F0 sows. Compared with wild-type milk, rhLZ milk inhibited growth of Escherichia coli K88 during the exponential growth phase. Moreover, rhLZ in milk from transgenic sows was directly absorbed by the intestine of piglets with no observable anaphylactic reaction. Our strategy may provide a powerful tool for large-scale production of this important human protein in pigs to improve resistance to pathogen infection.
Relighting Spherical Light Fields with Polynomial Texture Mapping

We present a novel image-based rendering (IBR) technique based on spherical light ﬁelds, which makes it possible to relight the captured object for arbitrary viewing positions. This approach incorporates view-dependent effects such as self-shadowing and inter-reﬂections. For this, we apply Polynomial Texture Maps (PTMs) to 3D objects. Once acquired, a light ﬁeld representation of an object can be relit at low computation costs due to the efﬁciency of the PTM approach. The relighting process makes even small lighting changes visible and retains surface appearance even on a meso-scale level. Furthermore, we present a simple method to adopt specular reﬂections captured in the PTM to novel viewing directions.
The Sub-Regional Functional Organization of Neocortical Irritative Epileptic Networks in Pediatric Epilepsy

Between seizures, irritative network generates frequent brief synchronous activity, which manifests on the EEG as interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs). Recent insights into the mechanism of IEDs at the microscopic level have demonstrated a high variance in the recruitment of neuronal populations generating IEDs and a high variability in the trajectories through which IEDs propagate across the brain. These phenomena represent one of the major constraints for precise characterization of network organization and for the utilization of IEDs during presurgical evaluations. We have developed a new approach to dissect human neocortical irritative networks and quantify their properties. We have demonstrated that irritative network has modular nature and it is composed of multiple independent sub-regions, each with specific IED propagation trajectories and differing in the extent of IED activity generated. The global activity of the irritative network is determined by long-term and circadian fluctuations in sub-region spatiotemporal properties. Also, the most active sub-region co-localizes with the seizure onset zone in 12/14 cases. This study demonstrates that principles of recruitment variability and propagation are conserved at the macroscopic level and that they determine irritative network properties in humans. Functional stratification of the irritative network increases the diagnostic yield of intracranial investigations with the potential to improve the outcomes of surgical treatment of neocortical epilepsy.
The Intensive Care Unit Perspective of Becoming a Level I Trauma Center: Challenges of Strategy, Leadership, and Operations Management

The primary purpose of this narrative is to elucidate the numerous significant changes that occur at the intensive care unit (ICU) level as a medical center pursues becoming a Level I trauma center. Specifically, we will focus on the following important areas: (1) leadership and strategy issues behind the decision to move forward with becoming a trauma center; (2) preparation needed to take a highly functioning surgical ICU and align it for the inevitable changes that happen as trauma go-live occurs; (3) intensivist staffing changes; (4) roles for and training of advanced practice practitioners; (5) graduate medical education issues; (6) optimizing interactions with closely related services; (7) nursing, staffing, and training issues; (8) bed allocation issues; and (9) reconciling the advantages of a “unified adult critical care service” with the realities of the central relationship between trauma and surgical critical care.
A new SETX mutation producing AOA2 in two siblings

Objective: In this paper, we document two cases of a new SETX mutation (820:A>G) combined with an established recessive SETX mutation (5927:T>G) causing ataxia with oculomotor apraxia type 2 (AOA2). Methods: The patients had a detailed neurological history and examination performed. Radiological imaging was obtained and genetic analysis was obtained. Results: Both siblings demonstrated healthy and normal growth until adolescence. At that time, slowed speech, hypophonia, dysarthria, extraocular muscle dysfunction and some mild choreiform movements began to appear. Family history included some movement disorder difficulties in second degree relatives. The diagnosis of AOA2 was confirmed by genetic testing. Conclusions: We describe a new SETX gene mutation, which when combined with a recognized SETX mutation results in AOA2. The clinical, radiographic and ancillary testing are described.
Understanding the Warburg Effect: The Metabolic Requirements of Cell Proliferation

Fuel Economy for Growing Cells Sophisticated 21st-century analyses of the signaling pathways that control cell growth have led researchers back to the seminal work of Otto Warburg, who discovered in the 1920s that tumor cells generate their energy in an unusual way—by switching from mitochondrial respiration to glycolysis. The advantage conferred by this metabolic switch is puzzling because mitochondrial respiration is a more efficient way to produce ATP. Vander Heiden et al. (p. 1029) review arguments that rapidly growing cells have critical metabolic requirements that extend beyond ATP and that a better understanding of these requirements may shed new light on the “Warburg effect” and ultimately lead to new therapies for cancer. In contrast to normal differentiated cells, which rely primarily on mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation to generate the energy needed for cellular processes, most cancer cells instead rely on aerobic glycolysis, a phenomenon termed “the Warburg effect. ” Aerobic glycolysis is an inefficient way to generate adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP), however, and the advantage it confers to cancer cells has been unclear. Here we propose that the metabolism of cancer cells, and indeed all proliferating cells, is adapted to facilitate the uptake and incorporation of nutrients into the biomass (e.g., nucleotides, amino acids, and lipids) needed to produce a new cell. Supporting this idea are recent studies showing that (i) several signaling pathways implicated in cell proliferation also regulate metabolic pathways that incorporate nutrients into biomass; and that (ii) certain cancer-associated mutations enable cancer cells to acquire and metabolize nutrients in a manner conducive to proliferation rather than efficient ATP production. A better understanding of the mechanistic links between cellular metabolism and growth control may ultimately lead to better treatments for human cancer.
SCHEDULED DIVERSITY

We introduce and study minimax curriculum learning (MCL), a new method for adaptively selecting a sequence of training subsets for a succession of stages in machine learning. The subsets are encouraged to be small and diverse early on, and then larger, harder, and allowably more homogeneous in later stages. At each stage, model weights and training sets are chosen by solving a joint continuous-discrete minimax optimization, whose objective is composed of a continuous loss (reflecting training set hardness) and a discrete submodular promoter of diversity for the chosen subset. MCL repeatedly solves a sequence of such optimizations with a schedule of increasing training set size and decreasing pressure on diversity encouragement. We reduce MCL to the minimization of a surrogate function handled by submodular maximization and continuous gradient methods. We show that MCL achieves better performance and, with a clustering trick, uses fewer labeled samples for both shallow and deep models while achieving the same performance. Our method involves repeatedly solving constrained submodular maximization of an only slowly varying function on the same ground set. Therefore, we develop a heuristic method that utilizes the previous submodular maximization solution as a warm start for the current submodular maximization process to reduce computation while still yielding a guarantee.
Upstream paths for Hippo signaling in Drosophila organ development

Organ growth is fundamental to animal development. One of major mechanisms for growth control is mediated by the conserved Hippo signaling pathway initially identified in Drosophila. The core of this pathway in Drosophila consists of a cascade of protein kinases Hippo and Warts that negatively regulate transcriptional coactivator Yorkie (Yki). Activation of Yki promotes cell survival and proliferation to induce organ growth. A key issue in Hippo signaling is to understand how core kinase cascade is activated. Activation of Hippo kinase cascade is regulated in the upstream by at least two transmembrane proteins Crumbs and Fat that act in parallel. These membrane proteins interact with additional factors such as FERM-domain proteins Expanded and Merlin to modulate subcellular localization and function of the Hippo kinase cascade. Hippo signaling is also influenced by cytoskeletal networks and cell tension in epithelia of developing organs. These upstream events in the regulation of Hippo signaling are only partially understood. This review focuses on our current understanding of some upstream processes involved in Hippo signaling in developing Drosophila organs.
Origin of Chemical Diversity in Prochloron-Tunicate Symbiosis

ABSTRACT Diversity-generating metabolism leads to the evolution of many different chemicals in living organisms. Here, by examining a marine symbiosis, we provide a precise evolutionary model of how nature generates a family of novel chemicals, the cyanobactins. We show that tunicates and their symbiotic Prochloron cyanobacteria share congruent phylogenies, indicating that Prochloron phylogeny is related to host phylogeny and not to external habitat or geography. We observe that Prochloron exchanges discrete functional genetic modules for cyanobactin secondary metabolite biosynthesis in an otherwise conserved genetic background. The module exchange leads to gain or loss of discrete chemical functional groups. Because the underlying enzymes exhibit broad substrate tolerance, discrete exchange of substrates and enzymes between Prochloron strains leads to the rapid generation of chemical novelty. These results have implications in choosing biochemical pathways and enzymes for engineered or combinatorial biosynthesis. IMPORTANCE While most biosynthetic pathways lead to one or a few products, a subset of pathways are diversity generating and are capable of producing thousands to millions of derivatives. This property is highly useful in biotechnology since it enables biochemical or synthetic biological methods to create desired chemicals. A fundamental question has been how nature itself creates this chemical diversity. Here, by examining the symbiosis between coral reef animals and bacteria, we describe the genetic basis of chemical variation with unprecedented precision. New compounds from the cyanobactin family are created by either varying the substrate or importing needed enzymatic functions from other organisms or via both mechanisms. This natural process matches successful laboratory strategies to engineer the biosynthesis of new chemicals and teaches a new strategy to direct biosynthesis.
Determination of the Free Gibbs Energy of Plate-Like Precipitates of Hydrogen Molecules and Silicon Vacancies Formed after H+ Ion Implantation into Silicon and Annealing

Hydrogen implantation at room temperature into monocrystalline silicon leads to the formation of complex defects and also to the appearance of in-plane compressive stress. During annealing hydrogen atoms and vacancies co-precipitate into platelets lying on two types of habit planes. These platelets play a decisive role in the fracture of the material that can occur during further annealing and which is used for the manufacture of SOI wafers. Thus, their stress assisted nucleation mechanism has to be well understood. Here, we develop a formalism based on the Volmer’s model which allows calculating the variation of the free Gibbs energy of the system following the nucleation of a platelet. In an unstressed crystal, this energy only relies on the habit plane of the platelet. When the system is under stress, this energy also depends on a term coupling this stress and the strain field generated by the platelet. Because those energies control the nucleation rate of the platelets variants, we could calibrate our model using the transmission electron microscopy observations of the platelets occurrences as a function of depth and, thus, as a function of the magnitude of the intrinsic stress and the angles between the stress direction and Burgers vectors of the considered platelets. These experimental distributions allowed us adjusting the parameters describing the Gibbs free energy of platelets.
Effects of weaving laser on scanning laser-MAG hybrid welding characteristics of high-strength steel

Scanning laser-MAG hybrid welding with weaving laser was developed for the bead-on-plate welding of high-strength steel. Weaving laser exerted little effect on the droplet transfer behaviour during the scanning laser-MAG hybrid welding process. In order to achieve the keyhole mode of laser welding, the weaving amplitude should be no more than 2 mm. The weld penetration decreased with the increasing weaving frequency. Compared to laser-MAG hybrid weld, the ratio of arc zone width to laser zone width decreased significantly. Scanning laser-MAG hybrid welding could suppress the porosity defects of weld efficiently. The optimal weaving frequency for the porosity defects suppression was 20 Hz. However, the porosity defects increased sharply with the weaving frequency of laser over 40 Hz. The impact-absorbed energy value of specimen fabricated by scanning laser-MAG hybrid welding was about 46 J, increased by about 31.4% compared to about 35 J of laser-MAG hybrid welding.
Information Technology, Repeated Contracts and the Number of Suppliers

Many theories address how information technology IT affects the number of suppliers and supply chain governance. However, their predictions are at times contradictory and there is relatively little empirical evidence with which to evaluate them. We therefore develop an integrated, multiperiod model of the optimal number of suppliers that combines search and coordination theory, transaction cost economics, and incomplete contracts theory, and we assess our theoretical predictions using a large new data set on the global IT sourcing decisions of 1,355 firms in 12 countries. Our empirical results support three key predictions about trust, IT, and supply base size. First, investments in coordination IT, which reduce search and coordination costs, are correlated with using more suppliers, while use of vendor-specific IT is associated with fewer suppliers. Second, repeated relationships and trust play a major role in supply chain governance. As firms work with fewer suppliers, they also engage in more repeated relationships. At the same time asset specificity and the need to induce relationship-specific investments are correlated not only with fewer suppliers, but also with a larger fraction of repeated relationships. Third, supply chain governance differs in human capital-intensive and physical capital-intensive industries. The correspondence between asset specificity and repetition is strong in physical capital-intensive firms and not significant in human capital-intensive firms, while the correspondence between fewer suppliers and more repeated relationships is strong in human capital-intensive firms but not significant in physical capital-intensive firms. This corroborates the differential implications of human and physical capital for bargaining power, contractual risk, and trust in buyer-supplier relationships. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016. 2631 . This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.
ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISATIONS OF PLASMA

Thin films of plasma polymerised linalyl acetate (PLA) were fabricated and their electrical properties investigated. The high frequency dielectric constant was determined using the split post dielectric resonator (SPDR) technique at frequencies of 10 GHz and 20 GHz and compared with the low frequency dielectric constant found from capacitive measurements of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structures. Dielectric constants of 2.39 and 2.43 resulted from each of the respective techniques, in good agreement with each other. The J-V characteristics of MIM structures fabricated at various RF power levels were then investigated in order to determine the resistivity and DC conduction mechanism of the PLA thin films. From these data, the predominate mechanism of charge transport in the high voltage region was found to be consistent with Richardson-Schottky conduction, and the resistivity of the thin films found to increase with increasing RF power.
The Genetics and Ecology of Reinforcement

Reinforcement, the evolution of prezygotic reproductive barriers by natural selection in response to maladaptive hybridization, is one of the most debated processes in speciation. Critics point to “fatal” conceptual flaws for sympatric evolution of prezygotic isolation, but recent theoretical and empirical work on genetics and ecology of reinforcement suggests that such criticisms can be overcome. New studies provide evidence for reinforcement in frogs, fish, insects, birds, and plants. While such evidence lays to rest the argument over reinforcement's existence, our understanding remains incomplete. We lack data on (1) the genetic basis of female preferences and the links between genetics of pre‐ and postzygotic isolation, (2) the ecological basis of reproductive isolation, (3) connections between prezygotic isolation between species and within‐species sexual selection (potentially leading to a “cascade” of effects on reproductive isolation), (4) the role of habitat versus mate preference in reinforcement, and (5) additional detailed comparative studies. Here, we review data on these issues and highlight why they are important for understanding speciation.
Laser MBE-grown yttrium iron garnet films on GaN: characterization of the crystal structure and magnetic properties

Yttrium iron garnet (YIG) films were grown on GaN substrates using the laser molecular beam epitaxy method. X-ray diffraction data showed polycrystalline YIG layers without additional structural modifications. The magnetic properties of the YIG films were studied at room temperature with the aid of a vibration sample magnetometer, the magneto-optical Kerr effect and ferromagnetic resonance methods. ‘Easy-plane’-type magnetic anisotropy was found in the films. The gyromagnetic ratio and 4 πMS value were calculated.