Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An autoregressive approach to inference in populations of correlated stochastic neurons

In this paper, we study the correlated neuronal activity caused by afferent inputs from distinct and common population of pre-synaptic neurons. We present a method based on the integration of the expectation-maximization algorithm, Kalman filtering and backward smoothing in order to estimate the parameters associated with pre-synaptic activity and the latent common inputs from post-synaptic measurements. We provide simulation results that validate the performance of the proposed methodology in terms of parameter estimation and tracking the dynamics of the common pre-synaptic inputs.
Identification and Distribution of the Interstitial Cells of Cajal in the Abomasum of Goats

The interstitial cells of Cajal (ICCs) are regarded as pacemakers and are involved in neurotransmission in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of animals. However, limited information is available about the existence of ICCs within the GIT of ruminants. In this study, we investigated the ultrastructural characteristics and distribution of ICCs in goat abomasum using transmission electron microscopy and c-kit immunohistochemistry. Two different kinds of c-kit immunoreactive cells were observed in the abomasum. The first was identified as ICCs, which appeared to be multipolar or bipolar in shape, with some processes. These c-kit immunoreactive cells were deposited in the submucosal layer, myenteric plexus between the circular and longitudinal muscle layers, and within the longitudinal and circular muscle layers of the abomasum. The second type of cell was round in shape and was identified as mast cells, which were located in the submucosal layer as well as in the lamina propria. Ultrastructurally, ICCs were also observed as stellate or spindle-shaped cells, which were consistent in shape with our c-kit immunoreactive cells. In the cytoplasm of ICCs, numerous mitochondria, rough endoplasmic reticulum, and caveolae were detected. ICCs were located in the myenteric plexus between the longitudinal and circular muscle layers (ICC-MY), with the longitudinal and circular muscle layer was replaced as “intramuscular layers” (ICC-IM), and in the submucosal layer (ICC-SM). In addition, we found ICCs surrounding nerve fibers and smooth muscle cells, where they formed heterocellular junctions in the form of close membrane associations or gap junctions and homocellular junctions among the processes of the ICCs. In the current study, we provide the first complete characterization of ICCs within the goat abomasum and propose that ICCs might have a key role in producing contractions in the ruminant stomach for proper absorption of nutrients.
Quality of life after esophageal resection

Introduction Esophageal resection is the primary treatment for malignant esophageal disease and the last resort for benign end-stage esophageal disease. There is a paucity of research comparing the long-term quality of life (QoL) following surgery among these two populations. The aim of this study was to examine the patient reported QoL after esophageal resection using questionnaires focusing on general well-being and esophageal-specific symptoms. Methods A prospectively maintained database of post-operatively administered European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire C30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) with supplemental esophageal cancer-specific questionnaires (OES-18) was queried after institutional review board approval through Creighton University School of Medicine. Inclusions were made if patients received an esophageal resection for benign or malignant esophageal disease. Emergency procedures, delayed reconstructions, and stage IV disease were excluded. Student’s t-test was used for domains of function, symptoms, QoL, and esophageal-specific complaints to compare the groups with each other and with the general population. Results A total of 39 out of 248 patients with malignant disease and 24 out of 46 with benign disease completed the questionnaire. A mean post-operative follow-up of 53 months with a response rate of 40% was obtained. There was no difference in physical (p=0.81), role (p =0.37), conditional (p=0.73), emotional (p=0.06), or social functions (p=0.42) between the general population and the esophageal resection groups. There was also no significant difference in generalized pain (p=0.86), nausea/vomiting (p=0.27), fatigue (p=0.86), swallowing (p=0.35), or esophageal pain (p=0.12). The malignant cohort had better outcomes than the benign cohort with respect to eating (p=0.04), indigestion (p=0.04), and QoL (p=<0.01). Discussion The underlying disease between these cohorts is drastically different, but postoperative functional status, generalized symptoms, swallowing ability, and esophageal pain were similar. There was no difference in functional status between the general population and the esophageal resection cohorts. Patients with malignant disease reported less problems with eating and a better QoL than their benign counterparts.
The Curse of Ties in Congestion Games with Limited Lookahead

We introduce a novel framework to model limited lookahead in congestion games. Intuitively, the players enter the game sequentially and choose an optimal action under the assumption that the $k-1$ subsequent players play subgame-perfectly. Our model naturally interpolates between outcomes of greedy best-response ($k=1$) and subgame-perfect outcomes ($k=n$, the number of players). We study the impact of limited lookahead (parameterized by $k$) on the stability and inefficiency of the resulting outcomes. As our results reveal, increased lookahead does not necessarily lead to better outcomes; in fact, its effect crucially depends on the existence of ties and the type of game under consideration. More specifically, already for very simple network congestion games we show that subgame-perfect outcomes (full lookahead) can be unstable, whereas greedy best-response outcomes (no lookahead) are known to be stable. We show that this instability is due to player indifferences (ties). If the game is generic (no ties exist) then all outcomes are stable, independent of the lookahead $k$. In particular, this implies that the price of anarchy of $k$-lookahead outcomes (for arbitrary $k$) equals the standard price of anarchy. For special cases of cost-sharing games and consensus games we show that no lookahead leads to stable outcomes. Again this can be resolved by removing ties, though for cost-sharing games only full lookahead provides stable outcomes. We also identify a class of generic cost-sharing games for which the inefficiency decreases as the lookahead $k$ increases.
Sentences with Gapping: Parsing and Reconstructing Elided Predicates

Sentences with gapping, such as Paul likes coffee and Mary tea, lack an overt predicate to indicate the relation between two or more arguments. Surface syntax representations of such sentences are often produced poorly by parsers, and even if correct, not well suited to downstream natural language understanding tasks such as relation extraction that are typically designed to extract information from sentences with canonical clause structure. In this paper, we present two methods for parsing to a Universal Dependencies graph representation that explicitly encodes the elided material with additional nodes and edges. We find that both methods can reconstruct elided material from dependency trees with high accuracy when the parser correctly predicts the existence of a gap. We further demonstrate that one of our methods can be applied to other languages based on a case study on Swedish.
14 Telemedicine in the Diagnosis and Management of Congenital Heart Disease

Several telemedicine applications have become well established in paediatric cardiology but there is potential for improvement in and expansion of existing programmes and opportunities for new applications. This chapter shall discuss why telemedicine has an important role to play in paediatric cardiology, examine current applications from fetus to adult, including the evidence base and suggest what future steps may be taken to promote the use of telemedicine in paediatric cardiology. We shall also consider what equipment and personnel are necessary for successful tele-cardiology. However, before examining the role of telemedicine in paediatric cardiology, it is first important to understand what congenital heart disease is and how it presents to clinicians.
Lightweight secure bootstrap and message attestation in the internet of things

Internet of Things (IoT) offers new opportunities for business, technology and science but it also raises new challenges in terms of security and privacy, mainly because of the inherent characteristics of this environment: IoT devices come from a variety of manufacturers and operators and these devices suffer from constrained resources in terms of computation, communication and storage. In this paper, we address the problem of trust establishment for IoT and propose a security solution that consists of a secure bootstrap mechanism for device identification as well as a message attestation mechanism for aggregate response validation. To achieve both security requirements, we approach the problem in a confined environment, named SubNets of Things (SNoT), where various devices depend on it. In this context, devices are uniquely and securely identified thanks to their environment and their role within it. Additionally, the underlying message authentication technique features signature aggregation and hence, generates one compact response on behalf of all devices in the subnet.
Comparison of 10 efficient protocols for photodynamic therapy of actinic keratosis: How relevant are effective light dose and local damage in predicting the complete response rate at 3 months?

Topical photodynamic therapy is an established treatment modality for various dermatological conditions, including actinic keratosis. In Europe, the approved protocols for photodynamic therapy of actinic keratosis involve irradiation with either an Aktilite CL 128 lamp or daylight, whereas irradiation with the Blu‐U illuminator is approved in the United States. Many other protocols using irradiation by a variety of light sources are also clinically efficient.
Three dimensional ballistocardiography: Methodology and results from microgravity and dry immersion

Balistocardiography was recorded in 3-D on a free floating astronaut in space as well as on healthy volunteers participating to a dry immersion study in a terrestrial laboratory. We demonstrate a new technique suitable for the analysis of 3-D BCG. The spatial curve of the displacement vector is analyzed instead of the three components of acceleration. The technique presented is invariant from the axis of representation and provides important novel physiological information.
Maternal anxiety, depression and sleep disorders before and during pregnancy, and preschool ADHD symptoms in the NINFEA birth cohort study

Aims. Maternal mental disorders have been associated with the risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children. Within the context of a mother–child cohort, we examined whether maternal anxiety, depression and sleep disorders are associated with pre-school ADHD symptoms. Methods. The study included 3634 singletons from the Italian NINFEA (Nascita e INFanzia: gli Effetti dell'Ambiente’) cohort. Maternal doctor-diagnosed anxiety, depression and sleep disorders before and during pregnancy were assessed from the questionnaires completed during pregnancy and 6 months after delivery. Mothers rated child ADHD symptoms at 4 years of age, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Hyperactive–impulsive (ADHD-H), inattentive (ADHD-I) and total ADHD scores were analysed in the models adjusted for child's gender, first-born status, maternal age, education, alcohol consumption and smoking during pregnancy. Results. The total ADHD score at age 4 was associated with maternal lifetime anxiety (17.1% percentage difference in score compared with never; 95% CI 7.3–27.9%), sleep disorders (35.7%; 95% CI 10.7–66.5%) and depression (17.5%; 95% CI 3.2–33.8%). Similar positive associations were observed also for ADHD-H and ADHD-I traits, with slightly attenuated associations between maternal sleep disorders and child ADHD-I score, and maternal depression and both ADHD scores. All the estimates were enhanced when the disorders were active during pregnancy and attenuated for disorders active only during the pre-pregnancy period. Conclusions. Maternal anxiety, depression and sleep disorders are associated with a relative increase in the number of ADHD-H, ADHD-I and total ADHD symptoms in preschoolers.
Optimal dose of perineural dexmedetomidine for interscalene brachial plexus block to control postoperative pain in patients undergoing arthroscopic shoulder surgery

Background: Adjuvant perineural dexmedetomidine can be used to prolong the analgesic effect of interscalene brachial plexus block (ISB). We investigated the optimal dose of dexmedetomidine in ISB for postoperative analgesia in patients undergoing arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Methods: One hundred patients scheduled for elective shoulder arthroscopic surgery were enrolled in this randomized, double-blind study. Ultrasound-guided ISB was performed before general anesthesia using 22 mL of ropivacaine 0.5% combined with 1, 1.5, or 2 &mgr;g/kg of dexmedetomidine (group D1, D2, and D3, respectively) or with normal saline as a control (group R, n = 25 per group). The primary outcome was the duration of analgesia (DOA), numeric pain rating scale (NRS), and consumption of additional analgesics during 36 h after ISB. Secondary outcome included durations of motor and sensory block (DOM and DOS), hemodynamic variables and sedation and dyspnea scores. Results: Ninety-seven patients completed the study. The DOS, DOM, and DOA were significantly longer in the dexmedetomidine groups than in group R. The DOA was significantly longer in group D3 than in groups D1 (P = .026) and D2 (P = .039). The DOA was 808.13 ± 179.97, 1032.60 ± 288.14, 1042.04 ± 188.13, and 1223.96 ± 238.06 min in groups R, D1, D2, and D3, respectively. The NRS score was significantly higher in group R than in the dexmedetomidine groups 12 h after ISB (P < .001) and significantly lower in group D3 than in the other groups 18 h after ISB (P = .02). The incidence of hypotension was higher in groups D2 and D3 than in group R during surgery (P = .008 and P = .011, respectively). There were no significant differences in consumption of rescue analgesics, sedation, and dyspnea scores between the study groups. Conclusion: Perineural dexmedetomidine 2 &mgr;g/kg could be the optimal dose in ISB for arthroscopic shoulder surgery in that it provides an adequate DOA. However, this dose was associated with increased risk of hypotension.
A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial of the Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine in Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Adults Aged 27 Years or Older: AIDS Clinical Trials Group Protocol A5298

Background Adults living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are at increased risk for anal and oropharyngeal cancer caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). The efficacy of HPV vaccines in this population is unknown. Methods In this phase 3, double-blind, randomized, controlled trial, we assigned HIV-infected adults aged ≥27 years to the quadrivalent HPV (types 6, 11, 16, 18) vaccine or placebo (1:1) stratified by sex and presence of anal high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions on biopsy (bHSIL). The primary endpoint was vaccine efficacy against incident persistent anal infection with quadrivalent vaccine types or single detection at the final visit that were not present at baseline. Secondary endpoints included vaccine efficacy for anal bHSIL after week 52, persistent oral HPV infection. Results A total of 575 participants were randomized. The Data and Safety Monitoring Board stopped the study early due to futility. Vaccine efficacy was 22% (95.1% confidence interval [CI], -31%, 53%) for prevention of persistent anal infection or single detection at the final visit, 0% (95% CI -44%, 31%) for improving bHSIL outcomes and 88% (95.1% CI 2%, 98%) for preventing persistent oral HPV infection, but was 32% (95.1% CI -80%, 74%) for 6-month persistent oral HPV infection or single detection at the final visit. Conclusions These results do not support HPV vaccination of HIV-infected adults aged ≥27 years to prevent new anal HPV infections or to improve anal HSIL outcomes. However, our data suggest a role for prevention of oral HPV infections, but this finding should be confirmed in future studies. Clinical Trials Registration NCT01461096.
Hardware Overhead Reduction of a QDI Booth Multiplier

This paper presents a new method to implement a multiplier using the Quasi Delay Insensitive (QDI) approach. QDI circuits allow unbounded delays on wires and gates, and require the difference among the delays in forks to be less than the delays of their terminating gates. To implement the Booth multiplier following the QDI approach, we considered Martin’s method. In this method, an asynchronous circuit is considered as a set of cells that communicate through a handshaking protocol, and is synthesized from a high level definition through different levels of translation. The main problem related to the resulting circuits their considerable overhead due to the implementation of handshaking protocols. In our proposed method, the overhead is reduced 50% by separating the control and data path units. This solution increases the forks, and causes complexity in physical implementation. By applying some of the rules derived from Martin’s method, the forks became locally limited to ease up the physical implementation.
Improving the performance of a neural-machine interface for artificial legs using prior knowledge of walking environment

A previously developed neural-machine interface (NMI) based on neuromuscular-mechanical fusion has showed promise for recognizing user locomotion modes; however, errors of NMI during mode transitions were observed, which may challenge its real application. This study aimed to investigate whether or not the prior knowledge of walking environment could further improve the NMI performance. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA)-based classifiers were designed to identify user intent based on electromyographic (EMG) signals from residual muscles of leg amputees and ground reaction force (GRF) measured from the prosthetic leg. The prior knowledge of the terrain in front of the user adjusted the prior possibility in the discriminant function. Therefore, the boundaries of LDA were adaptive to the prior knowledge of the walking environment. This algorithm was evaluated on a dataset collected from one patient with a transfemoral (TF) amputation. The preliminary results showed that the NMI with adaptive prior possibilities outperformed the NMI without using the prior knowledge; it produced 98.7% accuracy for identifying tested locomotion modes, accurately predicted all the task transitions with 261–390 ms prediction time, and generated stable decision during task transitions. These results indicate the potential of using prior knowledge about walking environment to further improve the NMI for prosthetic legs.
On the turbulent flow field over riblets of various groove sizes at low Reynolds number

In this work, low Reynolds number turbulent flow through a corrugated channel, formed by standard V-groove riblets, are investigated via direct numerical simulations (DNS). The simulations attempt to assess the variation of flow dynamics caused by a change in the characteristic size of the V-groove riblets. Such characterization of size effects provides a means to identify the local flow features arising from fluid-riblet interaction, and to investigate their relevance to the change in viscous drag and turbulence statistics. The present simulations confirmed an improved variation trend when the flow dynamics is examined in the light of the groove size. At the lower end of the range of groove size considered, the profiles of turbulence statistics more or less resemble the plane channel flow, except for a systematic shift with the groove size. When the groove size becomes increasingly large, the lodging of near-wall flow structures and the generation of mean secondary flows tend to be more apparent. The collective impact of the lodging of flow structures and the mean secondary flow correlates with the increase in viscous drag, and leads to significant alterations of the turbulence statistics.
National roll-out of latent tuberculosis testing and treatment for new migrants in England: a retrospective evaluation in a high-incidence area

Latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) screening is an important intervention for tuberculosis (TB) elimination in low-incidence countries and is, therefore, a key component of England's TB control strategy. This study describes outcomes from a LTBI screening programme in a high-incidence area to inform national LTBI screening in England and other low-incidence countries. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of LTBI screening among eligible migrants (from high-incidence countries and entered the UK within the last 5 years), who were identified at primary-care clinics in Newham, London between August 2014 and August 2015. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with LTBI testing uptake, interferon-γ release assay (IGRA) positivity and treatment uptake. 40% of individuals offered LTBI screening received an IGRA test. The majority of individuals tested were 16–35 years old, male and born in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan. Country of birth, smoking status and co-morbidities were associated with LTBI testing uptake. IGRA positivity was 32% among those tested and was significantly associated with country of birth, age, sex and co-morbidities. This study identifies factors associated with screening uptake, IGRA positivity and treatment uptake, and improves understanding of groups that should be supported to increase acceptability of LTBI testing and treatment in the community. The LTBI screening programme is effective in identifying a high number of LTBI cases, but it is patient and provider-dependent http://ow.ly/AKMu30g1rMB
Quorum Sensing and Quorum Quenching in Agrobacterium: A “Go/No Go System”?

The pathogen Agrobacterium induces gall formation on a wide range of dicotyledonous plants. In this bacteria, most pathogenicity determinants are borne on the tumour inducing (Ti) plasmid. The conjugative transfer of this plasmid between agrobacteria is regulated by quorum sensing (QS). However, processes involved in the disturbance of QS also occur in this bacteria under the molecular form of a protein, TraM, inhibiting the sensing of the QS signals, and two lactonases BlcC (AttM) and AiiB that degrade the acylhomoserine lactone (AHL) QS signal. In the model Agrobacterium fabrum strain C58, several data, once integrated, strongly suggest that the QS regulation may not be reacting only to cell concentration. Rather, these QS elements in association with the quorum quenching (QQ) activities may constitute an integrated and complex “go/no go system” that finely controls the biologically costly transfer of the Ti plasmid in response to multiple environmental cues. This decision mechanism permits the bacteria to sense whether it is in a gall or not, in a living or decaying tumor, in stressed plant tissues, etc. In this scheme, the role of the lactonases selected and maintained in the course of Ti plasmid and agrobacterial evolution appears to be pivotal.