Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Active Feature Acquisition with Supervised Matrix Completion

Feature missing is a serious problem in many applications, which may lead to low quality of training data and further significantly degrade the learning performance. While feature acquisition usually involves special devices or complex process, it is expensive to acquire all feature values for the whole dataset. On the other hand, features may be correlated with each other, and some values may be recovered from the others. It is thus important to decide which features are most informative for recovering the other features as well as improving the learning performance. In this paper, we try to train an effective classification model with least acquisition cost by jointly performing active feature querying and supervised matrix completion. When completing the feature matrix, a novel objective function is proposed to simultaneously minimize the reconstruction error on observed entries and the supervised loss on training data. When querying the feature value, the most uncertain entry is actively selected based on the variance of previous iterations. In addition, a bi-objective optimization method is presented for cost-aware active selection when features bear different acquisition costs. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is well validated by both theoretical analysis and experimental study.
The evolution of regulators of G protein signalling proteins as drug targets – 20 years in the making: IUPHAR Review 21

Regulators of G protein signalling (RGS) proteins are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their discovery. The unveiling of this new family of negative regulators of G protein signalling in the mid‐1990s solved a persistent conundrum in the G protein signalling field, in which the rate of deactivation of signalling cascades in vivo could not be replicated in exogenous systems. Since then, there has been tremendous advancement in the knowledge of RGS protein structure, function, regulation and their role as novel drug targets. RGS proteins play an important modulatory role through their GTPase‐activating protein (GAP) activity at active, GTP‐bound Gα subunits of heterotrimeric G proteins. They also possess many non‐canonical functions not related to G protein signalling. Here, an update on the status of RGS proteins as drug targets is provided, highlighting advances that have led to the inclusion of RGS proteins in the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY database of drug targets.
Painful Ophthalmoplegia as a Presenting Manifestationof Mucormycosis in an Apparently Normal UnknownDiabetic Patient: A Rare Case Report

Mucormycosis is a rare life threatening opportunistic fungal infection Caused by fungi of mycorales order belonging to the Phycomycetes class. Because of its rapid progression and high mortality, early recognition and aggressive treatment offers the only chance to increase the survival rate. We report a patient with mucormycosis who presented with painful opthalmoplegia and was incidentally detected to have diabetes. He was successfully treated with medical management only. The possibility of mucormycosis should be investigated in any patient with painful opthalmoplegia
A High-fat and High-Cholesterol Diet Potentiates Oxidative Damage in Hippocampus of Mice Lacking Apolipoprotein E

Objective: We examined genetic and dietary challenge on hippocampal oxidative damage. Mice expressing (ApoE+/+) or lacking apolipoprotein E (ApoE-/-) were maintained on a standard diet or a high fat /high cholesterol (challenge) diet for 11-31 weeks. Similar levels of oxidative species were observed for ApoE+/+ and -/- mice maintained on the basal diet. Method: However, treatment of ApoE-/- homogenates with hydrogen peroxide and iron increased oxidative species by >100%, indicating an equivalent amount of potential oxidative species in latent form. We observed a time- and region-specific induction of oxidative damage in the hippocampi of ApoE-/- but not +/+ mice while maintained on the challenge diet. Notably, however, additional significant latent oxidative products were detected during this time. After 31 weeks of dietary challenge, by which time hippocampal oxidative species had doubled, there was an additional 50% in the latent form. Conclusion: This highlights the degree to which ApoE deficiency places hippocampal tissue at risk for oxidative damage. Even a modest dietary deficiency may be sufficient to provoke oxidative damage to hippocampal tissue. These results highlight the combinatorial impact of genetic and dietary deficiencies on oxidative damage to hippocampal tissue.
Halo ratio from ground-based all-sky imaging

Abstract. The halo ratio (HR) is a quantitative measure characterizing the occurrence of the 22∘ halo peak associated with cirrus. We propose to obtain it from an approximation to the scattering phase function (SPF) derived from all-sky imaging. Ground-based fisheye cameras are used to retrieve the SPF by implementing the necessary image transformations and corrections. These consist of geometric camera characterization by utilizing positions of known stars in a camera image, transforming the images from the zenith-centred to the light-source-centred system of coordinates and correcting for the air mass and for vignetting, the latter using independent measurements from a sun photometer. The SPF is then determined by averaging the image brightness over the azimuth angle and the HR by calculating the ratio of the SPF at two scattering angles in the vicinity of the 22∘ halo peak. In variance from previous suggestions we select these angles to be 20 and 23∘, on the basis of our observations. HR time series have been obtained under various cloud conditions, including halo cirrus, non-halo cirrus and scattered cumuli. While the HR measured in this way is found to be sensitive to the halo status of cirrus, showing values typically >1 under halo-producing clouds, similar HR values, mostly artefacts associated with bright cloud edges, can also be occasionally observed under scattered cumuli. Given that the HR is an ice cloud characteristic, a separate cirrus detection algorithm is necessary to screen out non-ice clouds before deriving reliable HR statistics. Here we propose utilizing sky brightness temperature from infrared radiometry: both its absolute value and the magnitude of fluctuations obtained through detrended fluctuation analysis. The brightness temperature data permit the detection of cirrus in most but not all instances.
Gender-related differences in left ventricular filling dynamics in older subjects after endurance exercise training.

The present study was designed to determine if gender affects the adaptive response to endurance exercise training of left ventricular filling dynamics in older individuals. Recently, it was shown that gender influences the cardiovascular responses to endurance exercise training in older subjects. Older men improve left ventricular systolic performance and increase maximal cardiac output in response to endurance exercise training, whereas older women do not. Twelve men (65 +/- 1 years old; mean +/- SE) and 10 women (64 +/- 1) were studied before and after 9 months of endurance exercise training. Maximal O2 uptake was determined during treadmill exercise. Left ventricular filling dynamics and ejection fraction (EF) at rest and during supine exercise were assessed by Tc-99m radionuclide ventriculography. When expressed relative to body weight, maximal O2 uptake (VO2 max) was increased by 24% (27.3 +/- 1.5 to 34.0 +/- 1.5 ml/kg/min; p < .01) in men and 27% (21.9 +/- 1.0 to 27.8 +/- 1.0 ml/kg/min; p < .01) in women in response to endurance exercise training. In men, the time-to-peak filling rate (TPFR) decreased (-19.8 +/- 6.7 ms; p < .05) during exercise at a comparable heart rate in response to training. In contrast, the change in TPFR in women (+2.7 +/- 6.0 ms) was small and insignificant. Peak filling rate (PFR) at rest and during exercise was similar before and after training in men and women. The change in left ventricular systolic reserve at a comparable heart rate from pre-to posttraining improved in men (delta EF 4 +/- 3%; p < .05), but not in women (-2 +/- 3%). The results indicate that the adaptive response of left ventricular filling dynamics to endurance exercise training is influenced by gender in older subjects. Older men show improvement in left ventricular filling dynamics, whereas older women do not.
Effects of dietary saturated or unsaturated fatty acids and calcium levels on performance and mineral metabolism of broiler chicks.

The effects of inclusion of 8% oleic, palmitic, or a 50/50 mixture of oleic and palmitic acids as the major source of fat in the presence of . 8, 1.2, or 1.6% calcium in broiler diets was investigated using broiler chicks from day-old to 3 weeks of age. Supplementation of broiler diets with oleic acid reduced feed intake (P less than .05) and improved feed efficiency (P less than .01) compared to other treatments. Chicks fed diets supplemented with oleic acid or a mixture of oleic and palmitic acid gained more weight (P less than .01) over a 3-week period. Significant interactions were observed between type of dietary fatty acid and calcium level on metabolizable energy of diets (P less than .01), magnesium retention (P less than .05), calcium and fat retention (P less than .01), and proportion of excreta fatty acid that was present as soap (P less than .01). Although all fatty acids tested formed soap in the small intestine, soaps of oleic acid were efficiently utilized as opposed to soaps of palmitic acid. There was a significant (P less than .05) reduction in bone ash and bone calcium content of chicks fed diets supplemented with palmitic acid. There was a significant interaction (P less than .05) between type of fatty acid and calcium level on bone magnesium content. Increasing the calcium content of diets aggravated the decrease in calcium retention and bone calcium content associated with addition of fat.
The nutritional value of high-oil corn for broiler chicks.

A variety of corn (Natan) with high fat and protein contents (6.7 and 9.8%, respectively) was developed at Newe Ya'ar, Israel. The nutritive value of this corn for broiler chicks from 7 to 28 d of age was evaluated in two experiments. In the first experiment, Natan and a local conventional corn variety (LCC-2.9% fat and 7.2% protein) were incorporated in a relatively low-protein diet designated for the determination of AMEn by the substitution method. The AMEn content of Natan was found to be 3,658 kcal/kg, whereas that of LCC was 3,437 kcal/kg. There were no differences in feed intake or weight gain between chicks fed the two corn varieties, but feed efficiency of those fed the diet containing Natan was improved (P < .05). In the second experiment, the effects on the performance of chicks of diets adequate in protein and containing either imported conventional corn (ICC), or Natan, or ICC-enriched with corn oil and soybean meal (to equalize its fat and protein content to that of the diet containing Natan), were compared. There were no differences in feed intake or weight gain among chicks fed the three diets and in feed efficiency among chicks fed the diet containing Natan and those fed the other two diets, whereas, the enrichment of the ICC-containing diet significantly improved feed efficiency. It was concluded, therefore, that in spite of the high nutritional value of the high-oil corn, its effect on improving the performance of chicks, when replacing a conventional corn in a well-balanced diet, was not pronounced.
Update on intestinal microbiota in Crohn's disease 2017: Mechanisms, clinical application, adverse reactions, and outlook

The pathogenesis of Crohn's disease (CD) is complex, and it is thought to be associated with the environment, immune, hereditary, microbe, and other factors. If the balance between the host and the intestinal microbes in CD patients was broken, immune‐inflammatory response of susceptible individuals might be triggered. Probiotics could improve the intestinal microbial flora balance and treat human effectively. There are several new mechanisms that might explain the role of probiotics. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is becoming more and more attractive in treating a large amount of digestive system diseases that are related to the dysbiosis of intestinal microbiota. FMT has been widely used in recurrent Clostridium difficile infection. More and more attention has been paid on the clinical application of FMT in CD, while the exact mechanism is still a mystery. So in this review, we explore the mechanism, clinical application, and adverse reactions of intestinal microbiota in CD so that we can use the tool to cure more diseases. Enteric microbiota leads to new therapeutic strategies for CD.
Other Times Itźs Just Strolling Back Through My Timeline: Investigating Re-finding Behaviour on Twitter and Its Motivations

Returning to previously viewed or possessed information - re-finding - is a core information seeking behaviour that has been studied in diverse contexts including physical environments, personal computer filing systems, web search and email. Despite being designed for real-time and ephemeral content, recent studies have shown that re-finding of older content is performed in Social Media applications too. To better understand why this is and how re-finding can be better supported, in this work we describe the results of a large-scale web-based survey which queried 606 Twitter users on how and how often they re-find, as well as the motivations for this behaviour. Our main contribution is the qualitative analysis of these motivations and motivations sourced via two existing studies, resulting in a coding scheme documenting the breadth and frequency of different Social Media re-finding tasks. We discuss how this classification can be used in (i) the design of task-based evaluations, (ii) the detection and interpretation of re-finding in click-stream data and (iii) the design of Social Media search systems.
A greedy and neighbor aware data forwarding protocol in named data MANETs

Named data networking (NDN) has been drawing increasing attention in academia as well as industry. Data forwarding is one of the key issues in relation to efficient content retrieval in Named Data MANETs. Existing data forwarding protocols aim at either reducing network overhead or improving the success rate of content retrieval, but not both. As both metrics are important, in this paper, we propose a Greedy and Neighbor Aware forwarding protocol (GNA) to balance the trade-offs between success ratio of content retrieval and network overhead, and make NDN suitable for arbitrarily moving nodes in MANETs. The simulation results show that, compared with the greedy forwarding protocol, the GNA protocol can increase the success ratio of content retrieval by about 50% at the lower node density, and increase the network overhead by about 30%, the larger the data packet, the smaller the gap in network overhead; the transmission delay in GNA protocol is similar as the greedy forwarding protocol.
Autoimmune Hepatitis: Clinical Overview and Pathological Findings

Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is an uncommon cause of severe chronic hepatitis with a female predilection and affecting all ages and ethnic groups. Although its pathogenesis is still not completely clear, the condition has been linked to dysimmunoregulation of T lymphocytes, which attack and damage the hepatic parenchyma. Characteristic autoantibodies are produced against hepatocytes leading to cell injury and necrosis, eventually progressing to cirrhosis in a subset of patients. The goal of treatment is to prevent or halt disease progression by immunosuppressive therapy. Liver transplantation is the choice of treatment in selected patients with end stage liver disease, acute liver failure or hepatocellular carcinoma. Up to a third of post-transplanted patients have AIH recurrence in the allograft. The overall prognosis is good with high mortality in untreated cases. [N A J Med Sci. 2018;11(1):6-10. DOI: 10.7156/najms.2018. 110106]
Online Feature Ranking for Intrusion Detection Systems

Many current approaches to the design of intrusion detection systems apply feature selection in a static, non-adaptive fashion. These methods often neglect the dynamic nature of network data which requires to use adaptive feature selection techniques. In this paper, we present a simple technique based on incremental learning of support vector machines in order to rank the features in real time within a streaming model for network data. Some illustrative numerical experiments with two popular benchmark datasets show that our approach allows to adapt to the changes in normal network behaviour and novel attack patterns which have not been experienced before.
The effect of restrictive and compensatory growth on the incidence of leg abnormalities and performance of commercial male turkeys.

To determine if excessive body weight and dietary protein and amino acid intake contribute to the incidence of leg deformities, the growth of male turkeys was restricted from 6 to 12 wk and from 6 to 20 wk of age by feeding diets for ad libitum intake that were low in dietary protein and amino acids (74% of controls). For those turkeys whose growth was restricted from 6 to 12 wk of age, a return to control diets (low compensatory plane) or to 20% above control diets (high compensatory plane) with respect to protein and amino acids resulted in live body weights comparable with controls at 20 wk of age. Feed to gain ratios (0 to 20 wk) were comparable between compensated and control birds, and protein efficiency was improved for birds fed the low compensatory plane diets. Restricting growth significantly lowered the incidence of leg abnormalities at 12 wk of age (P less than .05), as compared with controls, but by 20 wk, only birds fed the low compensatory plane diet showed a lowered incidence (P less than .06). These results on leg abnormalities (mainly valgus-varus deformities) suggest that rapid weight gains or dietary protein and amino acid intake may contribute to the leg weakness syndrome but is certainly not the only factor involved.
Membrane‐associated guanylate kinase scaffolds organize a horizontal cell synaptic complex restricted to invaginating contacts with photoreceptors

Synaptic processes and plasticity of synapses are mediated by large suites of proteins. In most cases, many of these proteins are tethered together by synaptic scaffold proteins. Scaffold proteins have a large number and typically a variety of protein interaction domains that allow many different proteins to be assembled into functional complexes. Because each scaffold protein has a different set of protein interaction domains and a unique set of interacting partners, the presence of synaptic scaffolds can provide insight into the molecular mechanisms that regulate synaptic processes. In studies of rabbit retina, we found SAP102 and Chapsyn110 selectively localized in the tips of B‐type horizontal cell processes, where they contact cone and rod photoreceptors. We further identified some known SAP102 binding partners, kainate receptor GluR6/7 and inward rectifier potassium channel Kir2.1, closely associated with SAP102 in photoreceptor invaginations. The kainate receptor occupies a position distinct from that of the majority of AMPA receptors that dominate the horizontal cell postsynaptic response. GluR6/7 and Kir2.1 presumably are involved in synaptic processes that govern cell‐to‐cell communication and could both contribute in different ways to synaptic currents that mediate feedback signaling. Notably, we failed to find evidence for the presence of Cx57 or Cx59 that might be involved in ephaptic feedback signaling in this complex. The presence of SAP102 and its binding partners in both cone and rod invaginating synapses suggests that whatever mechanism is supported by this protein complex is present in both types of photoreceptors. J. Comp. Neurol. 525:850–867, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
An assessment of the psychometric performance of the Health Utilities Index 2 and 3 in children following discharge from a U.K. pediatric intensive care unit*

Objective: Our objective was to assess the psychometric performance of the Health Utilities Index 2 and 3 in a pediatric population following admission to a pediatric intensive care unit. Design: As part of a larger study of pediatric intensive care outcomes, children were followed up at 6 and 12 months post admission from pediatric intensive care using the Health Utilities Index 2 and 3. We evaluated and compared the psychometric performance of the Health Utilities Index 2 and 3 in this population by assessing their practicality, reliability, and limited information regarding validity. Setting: Twenty-two pediatric intensive care units in the United Kingdom. Patients: A total of 685 children aged 5 yrs and over. Interventions: The Health Utilities Index 2 and 3, which are both generic preference-based measures of health-related quality of life, were completed by proxy and children over 11 yrs of age were invited to self-complete. Measurement and Main Results: Both Health Utilities Index 2 and 3 demonstrated good practicality, with excellent completion rates (>97%) and a mean time to complete of around 8 mins. Both Health Utilities Index 2 and 3 demonstrated very good inter-rater reliability and evidence of sensitivity to change. At 6 months after admission, mean scores of the Health Utilities Index 2 and 3 were different in some groups of children with different degrees of in-hospital severity of illness, but those differences were not found at 12 months of follow-up. Conclusions: The Health Utilities Index 2 and 3 both perform well in a pediatric intensive care setting whether by self-complete or proxy complete. Evidence of good inter-rater reliability gives confidence that the measures can be reliably used with a proxy completer, such as parent or caregiver. Additional research is important to investigate their construct validity further in this population, ideally using baseline data collected at the time of hospital stay in pediatric intensive care and other measures of health status at the times of follow-up.
The Effect of Happiness and Sadness on Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Attention

Objective: According to the attention network approach, attention is best understood in terms of three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct networks—alerting, orienting, and executive attention. An important question is whether the experience of emotion differentially influences the efficiency of these networks. Method: This study examines 180 participants were randomly assigned to a happy, sad, or control condition and undertook a modified version of the Attention Network Test. Results: The results showed no effect of happiness or sadness on alerting, orienting, or executive attention. However, sad participants showed reduced intrinsic alertness. Conclusion: This suggests that sadness reduces general alertness rather than impairing the efficiency of specific attention networks. (J. of Att. Dis. 2010; 13(6) 629-639)
A Hybrid, Variational 3D Smoother For Orphaned Shell Meshes

In the present paper, a hybrid , variational, user-controlled, 3D mesh smoothing algorithm is proposed for orphaned shell meshes. The smoothing model is based on a variational combination of energy and equi-potential minimization theories. A variety of smoothing techniques for predicting a new location for the node-to-smooth are employed. Each node is moved according to a specific smoothing algorithm so as to keep element included angles, skew and distortion to a minimum. The variational smoother selection logic is based on nodal valency and element connectivity pattern of the node to smooth. Results show its consistency with both quadrilateral and quad-dominant meshes with a significant gain over conventional Laplacian schemes in terms of mesh quality, stability, user control and flexibility.