Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mortality and Case Fatality Due to Visceral Leishmaniasis in Brazil: A Nationwide Analysis of Epidemiology, Trends and Spatial Patterns

Background Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a significant public health problem in Brazil and several regions of the world. This study investigated the magnitude, temporal trends and spatial distribution of mortality related to VL in Brazil. Methods We performed a study based on secondary data obtained from the Brazilian Mortality Information System. We included all deaths in Brazil from 2000 to 2011, in which VL was recorded as cause of death. We present epidemiological characteristics, trend analysis of mortality and case fatality rates by joinpoint regression models, and spatial analysis using municipalities as geographical units of analysis. Results In the study period, 12,491,280 deaths were recorded in Brazil. VL was mentioned in 3,322 (0.03%) deaths. Average annual age-adjusted mortality rate was 0.15 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants and case fatality rate 8.1%. Highest mortality rates were observed in males (0.19 deaths/100,000 inhabitants), <1 year-olds (1.03 deaths/100,000 inhabitants) and residents in Northeast region (0.30 deaths/100,000 inhabitants). Highest case fatality rates were observed in males (8.8%), ≥70 year-olds (43.8%) and residents in South region (17.7%). Mortality and case fatality rates showed a significant increase in Brazil over the period, with different patterns between regions: increasing mortality rates in the North (Annual Percent Change – APC: 9.4%; 95% confidence interval – CI: 5.3 to 13.6), and Southeast (APC: 8.1%; 95% CI: 2.6 to 13.9); and increasing case fatality rates in the Northeast (APC: 4.0%; 95% CI: 0.8 to 7.4). Spatial analysis identified a major cluster of high mortality encompassing a wide geographic range in North and Northeast Brazil. Conclusions Despite ongoing control strategies, mortality related to VL in Brazil is increasing. Mortality and case fatality vary considerably between regions, and surveillance and control measures should be prioritized in high-risk clusters. Early diagnosis and treatment are fundamental strategies for reducing case fatality of VL in Brazil.
Central chemosensitivity is augmented during 2 h of thermoneutral head‐out water immersion in healthy men and women

What is the central question of the study? Is central chemosensitivity blunted during thermoneutral head‐out water immersion in healthy humans? What is the main finding and its importance? Central chemosensitivity is augmented during thermoneutral head‐out water immersion in healthy men and women. Thus, we suggest that the central chemoreceptors do not contribute to CO2 retention during head‐out water immersion.
Culture and Hybridization Experiments on an Ulva Clade Including the Qingdao Strain Blooming in the Yellow Sea

In the summer of 2008, immediately prior to the Beijing Olympics, a massive green tide of the genus Ulva covered the Qingdao coast of the Yellow Sea in China. Based on molecular analyses using the nuclear encoded rDNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, the Qingdao strains dominating the green tide were reported to be included in a single phylogenetic clade, currently regarded as a single species. On the other hand, our detailed phylogenetic analyses of the clade, using a higher resolution DNA marker, suggested that two genetically separate entities could be included within the clade. However, speciation within the Ulva clade has not yet been examined. We examined the occurrence of an intricate speciation within the clade, including the Qingdao strains, via combined studies of culture, hybridization and phylogenetic analysis. The two entities separated by our phylogenetic analyses of the clade were simply distinguished as U. linza and U. prolifera morphologically by the absence or presence of branches in cultured thalli. The inclusion of sexual strains and several asexual strains were found in each taxon. Hybridizations among the sexual strains also supported the separation by a partial gamete incompatibility. The sexually reproducing Qingdao strains crossed with U. prolifera without any reproductive boundary, but a complete reproductive isolation to U. linza occurred by gamete incompatibility. The results demonstrate that the U. prolifera group includes two types of sexual strains distinguishable by crossing affinity to U. linza. Species identification within the Ulva clade requires high resolution DNA markers and/or hybridization experiments and is not possible by reliance on the ITS markers alone.
Internet Use by Gynecologic Oncology Patients and Its Relationship with Anxiety

This study describes the use of the Internet for health information research by patients attending a gynecologic oncology practice and examines the association between its use and anxiety. A self-administered survey assessed patients’ demographic information and Internet use. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were administered concurrently. Of 212 patients who consented to the study, 98 (46%) had an appointment because of a cancer diagnosis. Of 199 respondents, 91 (46%) reported searching the Internet for information about their condition. Internet searching was unassociated with race/ethnicity and positively associated with education level, annual household income, and married/partnered civil status. Only 16% of the patients reported that a health-care provider recommended use of the Internet for research. Comparing patients who used the Internet for research with those who did not, the STAI state and trait anxiety scores were similar. The HADS anxiety subscale score was higher for those who used the Internet versus those who did not, which suggests heightened anxiety. Internet use for research is common in gynecologic oncology patients, and its use is associated with increased anxiety. Physicians can use this medium to educate patients about their disease, build trust, and alleviate fear.
A simple security policy enforcement system for an institution using SDN controller

Network administrators employ a variety of security policies to protect the data and services. However, the lack of standard control protocol and distributed network control causes these policies to be complicated in traditional networks. An ideal paradigm is provided by Software Defined Network (SDN) to address these challenges through separating the control plane from data plane. Security policies are enforced by logically centralized control's which take advantage of SDN. In this paper, we present a fully configurable system for an institution using POX which is a famous SDN controller. A network administrator can enforce the policies related to security, access and control through it. So that a single change in policy will be reflected in all the OpenFlow switches, attached to the SDN, resulting in reduced cost and time, as compare to the conventional networks where each switch is managed individually. The purpose of this research is to achieve a secure and controllable SDN by blocking the malicious and restricting the anonymous users in the network.
Geometry based method for iris segmentation

Iris recognition is a promising method for biometrie identification due to its non-invasiveness and distinguishability. Segmentation plays a key role in iris recognition since the recognition results are dependent on the quality of segmented iris. Segmentation results are prone to error due to many reasons. Corneal reflection and occlusion due to eyebrow are some which affect the quality of segmented iris. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme for the purpose of segmentation, which makes use of circular geometry of the pupil and iris to segment iris from the eye. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is fast and accurate in comparison to the existing algorithm in the literature.
Serial Changes in Mannose-Binding Lectin in Patients with Sepsis

Background Mannose-binding lectin (MBL) deficiency leads to increased susceptibility to infection. We investigated whether serial changes in MBL levels are associated with the prognosis of patients diagnosed with septic shock, and correlated with cytokine levels. Methods We enrolled 131 patients with septic shock in the study. We analyzed the serum samples for MBL and cytokine levels at baseline and 7 days later. Samples on day 7 were available in 73 patients. Results We divided the patients with septic shock into four groups according to serum MBL levels (<1.3 µg/mL or ≥1.3 µg/mL) on days 1 and 7. Patients with low MBL levels on day 1 and high MBL levels on day 7 showed a favorable prognosis for 28-day survival (odds ratio, 1.96, 95% confidence interval, 1.10–2.87; p=0.087). The high MBL group on day 7 showed a significant decrease in monocyte chemoattractant protein 1, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, IL-8, interferon-γ, and granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor levels compared with the low MBL group on day 7. Conclusion The increase in MBL levels of patients with septic shock may suggest a favorable prognosis and attenuate pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses.
Manipulator motion control in operational space using joint velocity inner loops

An operational space motion control scheme based on velocity feedback inner loops is considered in this paper. This scheme uses kinematic control for providing joint velocity and acceleration commands to an inner joint velocity control loop system. We present an outline of the stability analysis and some experimental results on a two degrees-of-freedom direct-drive arm.
A Dual Microscopy-Based Assay To Assess Listeria monocytogenes Cellular Entry and Vacuolar Escape

ABSTRACT Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive bacterium and a facultative intracellular pathogen that invades mammalian cells, disrupts its internalization vacuole, and proliferates in the host cell cytoplasm. Here, we describe a novel image-based microscopy assay that allows discrimination between cellular entry and vacuolar escape, enabling high-content screening to identify factors specifically involved in these two steps. We first generated L. monocytogenes and Listeria innocua strains expressing a β-lactamase covalently attached to the bacterial cell wall. These strains were then incubated with HeLa cells containing the Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) probe CCF4 in their cytoplasm. The CCF4 probe was cleaved by the bacterial surface β-lactamase only in cells inoculated with L. monocytogenes but not those inoculated with L. innocua, thereby demonstrating bacterial access to the host cytoplasm. Subsequently, we performed differential immunofluorescence staining to distinguish extracellular versus total bacterial populations in samples that were also analyzed by the FRET-based assay. With this two-step analysis, bacterial entry can be distinguished from vacuolar rupture in a single experiment. Our novel approach represents a powerful tool for identifying factors that determine the intracellular niche of L. monocytogenes.
On the Understanding of Video Streaming Viewing Behaviors Across Different Content Providers

Watching videos online has become prevalent in our daily activities. While there are extensive measurements studying about video on demand, IPTV, live streaming, etc., most of them focus their analysis on a single content provider (CP). Various user behaviors over multiple different CPs are yet to be explored. In this paper, we collect about ten million viewing records of the six most popular video CPs through a major Internet service provider (ISP) in Shanghai, China, and examine the user behaviors and access patterns with an emphasis on comparing them among different CPs in the same environments. Our analysis reveals the day-scale temporal patterns, the diversified device-wise preferences, and the city-scale geographical features of the different CPs, and identifies the high relevance between the user behaviors and the contents of the videos. Moreover, we find that user migration across multiple CPs is prevalent and highly influenced by different features of CPs. We believe that our observations and findings can provide valuable insights for CPs to enhance their user experience as well as ISPs to optimize the network architecture.
Plasmon-enhanced light-driven water oxidation by a dye-sensitized photoanode

Significance Dye-sensitized photoelectrosynthesis cells (DSPECs) provide a basis for artificial photosynthesis and solar fuels production. By combining molecular chromophores and catalysts with high surface area, transparent semiconductor electrodes, a DSPEC provides the basis for light-driven conversion of water to O2 and H2 or for reduction of CO2 to carbon-based fuels. The incorporation of plasmonic cubic silver nanoparticles, with a strongly localized surface plasmon absorbance near 450 nm, to a DSPEC photoanode induces a great increase in the efficiency of water oxidation to O2 at a DSPEC photoanode. The improvement in performance by the molecular components in the photoanode highlights a remarkable advantage for the plasmonic effect in driving the 4e-/4H+ oxidation of water to O2 in the photoanode. Dye-sensitized photoelectrosynthesis cells (DSPECs) provide a flexible approach for solar water splitting based on the integration of molecular light absorption and catalysis on oxide electrodes. Recent advances in this area, including the use of core/shell oxide interfacial structures and surface stabilization by atomic layer deposition, have led to improved charge-separation lifetimes and the ability to obtain substantially improved photocurrent densities. Here, we investigate the introduction of Ag nanoparticles into the core/shell structure and report that they greatly enhance light-driven water oxidation at a DSPEC photoanode. Under 1-sun illumination, Ag nanoparticle electrodes achieved high photocurrent densities, surpassing 2 mA cm−2 with an incident photon-to-current efficiency of 31.8% under 450-nm illumination.
Remission and low disease activity in systemic lupus erythematosus: an achievable goal even with fewer steroids? Real-life data from a monocentric cohort

Objectives To evaluate what proportion of patients fulfil the DORIS definition of remission, the definition of lupus low disease activity state (LLDAS) and LLDAS with a glucocorticoid (GC) dosage ≤5 (LLDAS5) in a longitudinal monocentric cohort of patients with SLE; to identify predictors of sustained remission and LLDAS attainment; to evaluate the effect of sustained remission and LLDAS on damage accrual over a period of 5 years and compare the two conditions in terms of clinical outcomes. Methods Retrospective analysis of data prospectively collected from patients with SLE followed from 2012 to 2016. Results 115 patients were included in this analysis. At baseline, 72% of patients were on LLDAS and almost all patients also fulfilled the LLDAS5 definition; 45% of patients were in remission on treatment, 12% were in remission off treatment, 26% were in complete remission on treatment, 2% were in complete remission off treatment. Disease activity at baseline was the strongest predictor of subsequent LLDAS and remission; the presence of joint and cutaneous manifestations was associated with a minor likelihood to achieve LLDAS or remission during follow-up. Patients in remission and LLDAS for the whole follow-up period accrued significantly less organ damage; on the contrary, patients who maintained all kinds of remissions or LLDAS for less than 50% of the time did not show any differences in damage accrual with respect to the rest of the cohort. Conclusion Remission and LLDAS, even with reduced GC use, are an achievable goal in clinical practice; sustained LLDAS and remission are both associated with reduced damage accrual.
Direct head‐to‐head comparison of glycaemic durability of dipeptidyl peptidase‐4 inhibitors and sulphonylureas in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A meta‐analysis of long‐term randomized controlled trials

We performed a meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to compare the long‐term glycaemic durability of dipeptidyl‐peptidase 4 (DPP‐4) inhibitors vs that of sulphonylureas (SUs) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), in terms of the changes in glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) levels from an intermediate time point (26 or 52 weeks) to 104 weeks of treatment. The Medline (PubMed), Embase (Ovid), and CENTER (Cochrane Library) databases were searched for relevant RCTs. Eight RCTs were included. Compared with SUs, DPP‐4 inhibitors were associated with significantly smaller increases in the HbA1c level from 24 to 28 weeks to 104 weeks (mean difference [MD]: −0.16%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.21 to −0.11; P < .001) and from 52 weeks to 104 weeks (MD −0.06%, 95% CI −0.10 to −0.02; P = .001). No significant heterogeneities were detected among the included comparisons (I2 = 0%). These results suggest that long‐term treatment with DPP‐4 inhibitors confers better durability of glycaemic response than treatment with SUs in patients with T2DM, which may indicate that DPP‐4 inhibitors better preserve islet β‐cell function compared with SUs.
Gray matter volume of the anterior insular cortex and social networking

In human life, social context requires the engagement in complex interactions among individuals as the dynamics of social networks. The evolution of the brain as the neurological basis of the mind must be crucial in supporting social networking. Although the relationship between social networking and the amygdala, a small but core region for emotion processing, has been reported, other structures supporting sophisticated social interactions must be involved and need to be identified. In this study, we examined the relationship between morphology of the anterior insular cortex (AIC), a structure involved in basic and high‐level cognition, and social networking. Two independent cohorts of individuals (New York group n = 50, Beijing group n = 100) were recruited. Structural magnetic resonance images were acquired and the social network index (SNI), a composite measure summarizing an individual's network diversity, size, and complexity, was measured. The association between morphological features of the AIC, in addition to amygdala, and the SNI was examined. Positive correlations between the measures of the volume as well as sulcal depth of the AIC and the SNI were found in both groups, while a significant positive correlation between the volume of the amygdala and the SNI was only found in the New York group. The converging results from the two groups suggest that the AIC supports network‐level social interactions.
A Polynomial time Algorithm for Hamilton Cycle and its detailed proof

Popular algorithms to find a Hamilton circle in an undirected graph are generally based on the Rotation-Extension method developed by Posa. However, due to the deficiencies of Posa's method, such algorithms are only efficient for graphs that are either very dense or sparse but regular. This article introduces a method called "Enlarged Rotation-Extension" that modifies and extends Posa's method, overcoming its deficiencies. Based on this technique, our algorithm is polynomial and we give a detailed proof for it.
The microbiome and cancer

Humans coexist with a vast bacterial, fungal and viral microbiome with which we have coevolved for millions of years. Several long recognized epidemiological associations between particular bacteria and cancer are now understood at the molecular level. At the same time, the arrival of next‐generation sequencing technology has permitted a thorough exploration of microbiomes such as that of the human gut, enabling observation of taxonomic and metabolomic relationships between the microbiome and cancer. These studies have revealed causal mechanisms for both microbes within tumours and microbes in other host niches separated from tumours, mediated through direct and immunological mechanisms. Copyright © 2018 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Contrast enhancement and micro-calcification detection using statistical and wavelet features in digital mammograms

Breast cancer detection and diagnosis has been a difficult problem to be solved in the medical field. Recently, the field has seen the use of information technology and it's found that the diagnosis process has gained a lot of improvements. While most of the raw digital mammographic images cannot be read by radiologist through naked eye, the images processed by the proposed technique draws fine micro-calcifications. After the pre-processing, later stages i.e., feature extraction and classification have achieved significant performance results. In the proposed technique, input image is first enhanced through laplacian filtering, then wavelet, statistical and a feature extracted from Histogram is used for classification in to cancerous or non-cancerous image. On classification with Artificial Neural Network, Daubechies-8 with 50% low frequency components along with statistical features produced 92.8% true detection rate with 12.5% positive false rate.
Automatic classification of schizophrenia using resting-state functional language network via an adaptive learning algorithm

A reliable and precise classification of schizophrenia is significant for its diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a novel tool increasingly used in schizophrenia research. Recent advances in statistical learning theory have led to applying pattern classification algorithms to access the diagnostic value of functional brain networks, discovered from resting state fMRI data. The aim of this study was to propose an adaptive learning algorithm to distinguish schizophrenia patients from normal controls using resting-state functional language network. Furthermore, here the classification of schizophrenia was regarded as a sample selection problem where a sparse subset of samples was chosen from the labeled training set. Using these selected samples, which we call informative vectors, a classifier for the clinic diagnosis of schizophrenia was established. We experimentally demonstrated that the proposed algorithm incorporating resting-state functional language network achieved 83.6% leaveone- out accuracy on resting-state fMRI data of 27 schizophrenia patients and 28 normal controls. In contrast with KNearest- Neighbor (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and l1-norm, our method yielded better classification performance. Moreover, our results suggested that a dysfunction of resting-state functional language network plays an important role in the clinic diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Power supply systems for defence applications a review part: II power conditioner system

Defense applications require quality electrical power in the form of three phase/single phase AC, 50 Hz/400 Hz and regulated DC power in general in the form of 5/12/24/28/48 V. To full fill these requirements, power conversion systems in the form of UPS, PCS, SMPS are required to be developed. Also various applications require different servo drives for controlled and desired speed / torque applications. Hence it is important to have efficient, compact, and reliable power conversion units with high power density to supply a wide range of loads for Military systems. More and more efforts are required for better power electronic systems in terms of reliability to ensure high availability, long life, sufficient robustness, low maintenance for such applications. Wideband gap devices such as Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) devices in power electronic converters can be used to reduce the device losses in futuristic defense applications. This paper presents the over view, need and requirement, customization and design aspects of power converter systems for defense applications. Some of the case studies on recent developments of such variants of power conditioning systems are also presented in this paper.