Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Further Evaluating the Acceptability of Group Visits in an Uninsured or Inadequately Insured Patient Population With Uncontrolled Type 2 Diabetes

PURPOSE The purpose of the study was to evaluate perceptions of care delivered through group visits to disadvantaged patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS One hundred eighty-six patients with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to receive care in group visits or usual care for 12 months. Their perceptions of the care they received were measured at baseline and 6 and 12 months by the Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCAT), the Diabetes-Specific Locus of Control (DLC) survey, and the Trust in Physician Scale (TPS). RESULTS Compared to patients in usual care, group visit patients' PCAT scores were higher in the domains of ongoing care (P = .001), community orientation (P < .0001), and cultural competence (P = .022). In addition, group patients had higher scores for the Powerful-Other Health Professional subscale of the DLC survey (P = .010). CONCLUSIONS Patients assigned to group visits had generally more positive perceptions about their care in the areas of ongoing care, community orientation of care, and cultural competence of care than did those in usual care. The perception that one's health professional is powerful, however, has been associated with a reluctance of patients to make medication changes on their own in previous studies. These findings suggest the need for modification in the way that group visits are conducted to empower and activate patients while still delivering continuous, culturally competent, and community-oriented care.
Exact solution and infinite-dimensional stability analysis of a single flexible link in collision

There is an increasing interest in examining the use of flexible link manipulators in tasks where there is contact with the environment. Presently, there has been limited work examining the stability of force control strategies for such manipulators, especially in the case where there is a switching transition between the unconstrained and constrained environments. In this paper, the modeling and stability of a single flexible link under proportional derivative control contacting an environment is studied. Intuitively, since the system only has passive elements, one would expect the system to be stable. With a few very reasonable assumptions, the problems associated with finite-dimensional approximations are solved by using a novel infinite-dimensional approach. The resultant infinite-dimensional switching system is shown to be asymptotically stable using an energy-based method.
Bayesian Optimization with Automatic Prior Selection for Data-Efficient Direct Policy Search

One of the most interesting features of Bayesian optimization for direct policy search is that it can leverage priors (e.g., from simulation or from previous tasks) to accelerate learning on a robot. In this paper, we are interested in situations for which several priors exist but we do not know in advance which one fits best the current situation. We tackle this problem by introducing a novel acquisition function, called Most Likely Expected Improvement (MLEI), that combines the likelihood of the priors and the expected improvement. We evaluate this new acquisition function on a transfer learning task for a 5-DOF planar arm and on a possibly damaged, 6-legged robot that has to learn to walk on flat ground and on stairs, with priors corresponding to different stairs and different kinds of damages. Our results show that MLEI effectively identifies and exploits the priors, even when there is no obvious match between the current situations and the priors.
Cadmium Concentrations in Blood and Seminal Plasma: Correlations with Sperm Number and Motility in Three Male Populations (Infertility Patients, Artificial Insemination Donors, and Unselected Volunteers)

To investigate a possible common environmental exposure that may partially explain the observed decrease in human semen quality, we correlated seminal plasma and blood cadmium levels with sperm concentration and sperm motility. We studied three separate human populations: group 1, infertility patients (Long Island, NY, USA); group 2, artificial insemination donors (AID) (Rochester, NY, USA); and group 3, general population volunteers (Rochester, NY, USA). Information about confounding factors was collected by questionnaire. Seminal plasma cadmium did not correlate with blood cadmium (Spearman correlation, n = 91, r = −0.092, P = 0.386, NS). Both blood and seminal plasma cadmium were significantly higher among infertility patients than the other subjects studied (for example, median seminal plasma cadmium was 0.282 µg/L in infertility patients versus 0.091 µg/L in AID and 0.092 µg/L in general population volunteers; Kruskal-Wallis test, P < 0.001). The percentage of motile sperm and sperm concentration correlated inversely with seminal plasma cadmium among the infertility patients (r = −0.201, P < 0.036 and r = −189, P < 0.05, respectively), but not in the other two groups. Age (among infertility patients) was the only positive confounder correlating with seminal plasma cadmium. To validate our human findings in an animal model, we chronically exposed adolescent male Wistar rats to low-moderate cadmium in drinking water. Though otherwise healthy, the rats exhibited decreases in epididymal sperm count and sperm motility associated with cadmium dose and time of exposure. Our human and rat study results are consistent with the hypothesis that environmental cadmium exposures may contribute significantly to reduced human male sperm concentration and sperm motility.
Detection of fiber effects on skin health of the human foot

The objective of this investigation was to better understand the effects of foot coverings differing in fiber content on the health of the skin on the foot. A longitudinal controlled parallel design wear trial was carried out over 8 weeks: four sock types differing in fiber/yarn closely matched for fiber diameter (100% acrylic, 100% wool (24.5 µm), 100% cotton, 100% wool (20.5 µm)), manufactured such that only fiber type differed, were worn by 16 men. The effects on transepidermal water loss, stratum corneum hydration, pH, skin temperature were examined. Variability in effects among the participants was evident. Each person was his own control, with change expressed as a percentage from baseline. Fabric structural properties and selected performance properties were measured on fabrics of the same fiber/structure as of the socks. Improvement in skin health at the heel, in particular, was evident. Wool socks were associated with more cases of improved skin health (e.g. reduced percentage changes in transepidermal water loss and increased stratum corneum hydration). Results from two indicators of skin health considered together provided stronger evidence of effects than one alone.
Rapid Assessment of Crop Status: An Application of MODIS and SAR Data to Rice Areas in Leyte, Philippines Affected by Typhoon Haiyan

Asian countries strongly depend on rice production for food security. The major rice-growing season (June to October) is highly exposed to the risk of tropical storm related damage. Unbiased and transparent approaches to assess the risk of rice crop damage are essential to support mitigation and disaster response strategies in the region. This study describes and demonstrates a method for rapid, pre-event crop status assessment. The ex-post test case is Typhoon Haiyan and its impact on the rice crop in Leyte Province in the Philippines. A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) derived rice area map was used to delineate the area at risk while crop status at the moment of typhoon landfall was estimated from specific time series analysis of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. A spatially explicit indicator of risk of standing crop loss was calculated as the time between estimated heading date and typhoon occurrence. Results of the analysis of pre- and post-event SAR images showed that 6500 ha were flooded in northeastern Leyte. This area was also the region most at risk to storm related crop damage due to late establishment of rice. Estimates highlight that about 700 ha of rice (71% of which was in northeastern Leyte) had not reached maturity at the time of the typhoon event and a further 8400 ha (84% of which was in northeastern Leyte) were likely to be not yet harvested. We demonstrated that the proposed approach can provide pre-event, in-season information on the status of rice and other field crops and the risk of damage posed by tropical storms.
Improvement of H2/CH4 Separation Performance of PES Hollow Fiber Membranes by Addition of MWCNTs into Polymeric Matrix

ABSTRACT Carboxylated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were added to polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes to improve their H2/CH4 separation properties. The addition of MWCNTs up to 1 wt% increased macrovoids formation in cross-section, while in 2 wt% loading, decreased due to increase in dope viscosity. The best gas separation performance for the mixed-matrix hollow fiber membranes was achieved at 1 wt% MWCNTs loading with hydrogen permeance of 69 GPU and H2/CH4 selectivity of 44.1 at 5 bar(g). Tensile test results showed that incorporation of MWCNTs into the polymeric matrix affected the mechanical properties of the fabricated membranes. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Toll-Like Receptor 4 (TLR4) and Typhoid Fever in Vietnam

Understanding the host genetic susceptibility to typhoid fever may provide a better understanding of pathogenesis and help in the development of new therapeutics and vaccines. Here we determine the genetic variation within the human TLR4 gene encoding the principal receptor for bacterial endotoxin recognition in typhoid fever patients. It is possible that genetic variants of TLR4 could detrimentally affect the innate immune response against S. typhi infection. Mutation detection and genotyping of TLR4 was performed on DNA from 414 Vietnamese typhoid fever patients and 372 population controls. dHPLC detected a total of 10 polymorphisms within the upstream and exonic regions of TLR4, of which 7 are novel. Two SNPs, T4025A and C4215G, were more frequent in typhoid cases than in controls however due to their low allele frequencies they showed borderline significance (T4025A: OR 1.9, 95%CI 0.9–4.3, P 0.07 and C4215G: OR 6.7, 95%CI 0.8–307, P 0.04). Six missense mutations were identified, with 5/6 positioned in the ectoplasmic domain. Four missense mutations and one promoter SNP (A-271G) were only present in typhoid cases, albeit at low allele frequencies. Here we determined the extent of genetic variation within TLR4 in a Vietnamese population and suggest that TLR4 may be involved in defense against typhoid fever in this population.
An always-on 3.8μJ/86% CIFAR-10 mixed-signal binary CNN processor with all memory on chip in 28nm CMOS

The trend of pushing deep learning from cloud to edge due to concerns of latency, bandwidth, and privacy has created demand for low-energy deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The single-layer classifier in [1] achieves sub-nJ operation, but is limited to moderate accuracy on low-complexity tasks (90% on MNIST). Larger CNN chips provide dataflow computing for high-complexity tasks (AlexNet) at mJ energy [2], but edge deployment remains a challenge due to off-chip DRAM access energy. This paper describes a mixed-signal binary CNN processor that performs image classification of moderate complexity (86% on CIFAR-10) and employs near-memory computing to achieve a classification energy of 3. 8μJ, a 40x improvement over TrueNorth [3]. We accomplish this using (1) the BinaryNet algorithm for CNNs with weights and activations constrained to +1/−1 [4], which drastically simplifies multiplications (XNOR) and allows integrating all memory on-chip; (2) an energy-efficient switched-capacitor (SC) neuron that addresses BinaryNet's challenge of wide vector summation; (3) architectural parallelism, parameter reuse, and locality.
A Micro-Macro Acceleration Method for the Monte Carlo Simulation of Stochastic Differential Equations

We present and analyse a micro-macro acceleration method for the Monte Carlo simulation of stochastic differential equations with separation between the (fast) time-scale of individual trajectories and the (slow) time-scale of the macroscopic function of interest. The algorithm combines short bursts of path simulations with extrapolation of a number of macroscopic state variables forward in time. The new microscopic state, consistent with the extrapolated variables, is obtained by a matching operator that minimises the perturbation caused by the extrapolation. We provide a proof of the convergence of this method, in the absence of statistical error, and we analyse various strategies for matching, as an operator on probability measures. Finally, we present numerical experiments that illustrate the effects of the different approximations on the resulting error in macroscopic predictions.
Metabolic Heterogeneity Evidenced by MRS among Patient-Derived Glioblastoma Multiforme Stem-Like Cells Accounts for Cell Clustering and Different Responses to Drugs

Clustering of patient-derived glioma stem-like cells (GSCs) through unsupervised analysis of metabolites detected by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) evidenced three subgroups, namely clusters 1a and 1b, with high intergroup similarity and neural fingerprints, and cluster 2, with a metabolism typical of commercial tumor lines. In addition, subclones generated by the same GSC line showed different metabolic phenotypes. Aerobic glycolysis prevailed in cluster 2 cells as demonstrated by higher lactate production compared to cluster 1 cells. Oligomycin, a mitochondrial ATPase inhibitor, induced high lactate extrusion only in cluster 1 cells, where it produced neutral lipid accumulation detected as mobile lipid signals by MRS and lipid droplets by confocal microscopy. These results indicate a relevant role of mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation for energy production in GSCs. On the other hand, further metabolic differences, likely accounting for different therapy responsiveness observed after etomoxir treatment, suggest that caution must be used in considering patient treatment with mitochondria FAO blockers. Metabolomics and metabolic profiling may contribute to discover new diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers to be used for personalized therapies.
Analysis of adaptive beaconing protocols for intersection assistance systems

Cooperative vehicular applications require severe to moderate requirements of accuracy and latency according to their purpose. Those applications mainly rely on the periodic exchange of information directly causing congestion problems on the communication channel and thus obtaining unreliable information at the application level. Adaptive and reactive beaconing tries to overcome that fact adapting transmission parameters to different criterions such as channel load, application requirements or specific situations to improve the overall performance of the vehicle network. Nevertheless, it has not yet been determined to date if the information disseminated by these protocols is suitable for the implementation of specific applications. In this context, we analyze the system behavior in a realistic simulated high dense intersection where the probability of packet reception becomes unpredictable and analytical models become inaccurate. We present a critical analysis on the performance of four relevant state-of-the-art protocols with different aims and approaches while their performance is evaluated with respect to position accuracies required by different kind of RSU-based applications.
Recurrent, Robust and Scalable Patterns Underlie Human Approach and Avoidance

Background Approach and avoidance behavior provide a means for assessing the rewarding or aversive value of stimuli, and can be quantified by a keypress procedure whereby subjects work to increase (approach), decrease (avoid), or do nothing about time of exposure to a rewarding/aversive stimulus. To investigate whether approach/avoidance behavior might be governed by quantitative principles that meet engineering criteria for lawfulness and that encode known features of reward/aversion function, we evaluated whether keypress responses toward pictures with potential motivational value produced any regular patterns, such as a trade-off between approach and avoidance, or recurrent lawful patterns as observed with prospect theory. Methodology/Principal Findings Three sets of experiments employed this task with beautiful face images, a standardized set of affective photographs, and pictures of food during controlled states of hunger and satiety. An iterative modeling approach to data identified multiple law-like patterns, based on variables grounded in the individual. These patterns were consistent across stimulus types, robust to noise, describable by a simple power law, and scalable between individuals and groups. Patterns included: (i) a preference trade-off counterbalancing approach and avoidance, (ii) a value function linking preference intensity to uncertainty about preference, and (iii) a saturation function linking preference intensity to its standard deviation, thereby setting limits to both. Conclusions/Significance These law-like patterns were compatible with critical features of prospect theory, the matching law, and alliesthesia. Furthermore, they appeared consistent with both mean-variance and expected utility approaches to the assessment of risk. Ordering of responses across categories of stimuli demonstrated three properties thought to be relevant for preference-based choice, suggesting these patterns might be grouped together as a relative preference theory. Since variables in these patterns have been associated with reward circuitry structure and function, they may provide a method for quantitative phenotyping of normative and pathological function (e.g., psychiatric illness).
Vehicle detection for forward collision warning system based on a cascade classifier using adaboost algorithm

This paper proposed a monocular vehicle detection for forward collision warning system. We use the active-learning framework to train a cascade classifier and use a two steps vehicle detection. We used five test data to quantify our detection performance, analyzing the two-stage vehicle detection improvement, and the overall detection rate and the false detection rate. In a good light condition, the detection rate and the false detection rate can achieve 0.967 and 0.122, respectively. Our system can achieve up to 45 frames per second on Intel core Ì7-6700 CPU.
Identifying Intrusions in Computer Networks Using Robust Fuzzy PCA

It is well-known that intrusion detection systems are an effective way to detect malicious connections in a computer network. Different feature extraction techniques have been applied in the field of detection intrusions; the most common one is Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Nevertheless, PCA is restricted to linear principal components and suffers from sensitivity to noise and can be easily affected by outliers. To deal with the drawbacks of PCA many data dimensionality reduction methods have been proposed, among them we found Robust Fuzzy PCA (RFPCA) which employs fuzzy memberships in order to reduce the effect of outliers. Unfortunately, even though RFPCA showed satisfactory results, it still suffers from the influence of outliers. In fact, using an increasing function such as exponential function in the estimation of memberships will assign a big membership values to outliers, consequently, the obtained results can be skewed. In this paper, we suggest a new variant of Robust Fuzzy PCA (RFPCA) method for the purpose of network IDS. Extensive experiments on the two well known datasets i.e. KDDcup99 and NSL-KDD demonstrated that the proposed approach takes the advantage over RFPCA and PCA in terms of network attacks detection and false alarms reduction.
Complete Genome Characterisation of a Novel 26th Bluetongue Virus Serotype from Kuwait

Bluetongue virus is the “type” species of the genus Orbivirus, family Reoviridae. Twenty four distinct bluetongue virus (BTV) serotypes have been recognized for decades, any of which is thought to be capable of causing “bluetongue” (BT), an insect-borne disease of ruminants. However, two further BTV serotypes, BTV-25 (Toggenburg orbivirus, from Switzerland) and BTV-26 (from Kuwait) have recently been identified in goats and sheep, respectively. The BTV genome is composed of ten segments of linear dsRNA, encoding 7 virus-structural proteins (VP1 to VP7) and four distinct non-structural (NS) proteins (NS1 to NS4). We report the entire BTV-26 genome sequence (isolate KUW2010/02) and comparisons to other orbiviruses. Highest identity levels were consistently detected with other BTV strains, identifying KUW2010/02 as BTV. The outer-core protein and major BTV serogroup-specific antigen “VP7” showed 98% aa sequence identity with BTV-25, indicating a common ancestry. However, higher level of variation in the nucleotide sequence of Seg-7 (81.2% identity) suggests strong conservation pressures on the protein of these two strains, and that they diverged a long time ago. Comparisons of Seg-2, encoding major outer-capsid component and cell-attachment protein “VP2” identified KUW2010/02 as 26th BTV, within a 12th Seg-2 nucleotype [nucleotype L]. Comparisons of Seg-6, encoding the smaller outer capsid protein VP5, also showed levels of nt/aa variation consistent with identification of KUW2010/02 as BTV-26 (within a 9th Seg-6 nucleotype - nucleotype I). Sequence data for Seg-2 of KUW2010/02 were used to design four sets of oligonucleotide primers for use in BTV-26, type-specific RT-PCR assays. Analyses of other more conserved genome segments placed KUW2010/02 and BTV-25/SWI2008/01 closer to each other than to other “eastern” or “western” BTV strains, but as representatives of two novel and distinct geographic groups (topotypes). Our analyses indicate that all of the BTV genome segments have evolved under strong purifying selection.
Effective impairment of myeloma cells and their progenitors by hyperthermia

Multiple myeloma (MM) remains incurable, and MM-initiating cells or MM progenitors are considered to contribute to disease relapse through their drug-resistant nature. In order to improve the therapeutic efficacy for MM, we recently developed novel superparamagnetic nanoparticles which selectively accumulate in MM tumors and extirpate them by heat generated with magnetic resonance. We here aimed to clarify the therapeutic effects on MM cells and their progenitors by hyperthermia. Heat treatment at 43°C time-dependently induced MM cell death. The treatment upregulated endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress mediators, ATF4 and CHOP, while reducing the protein levels of Pim-2, IRF4, c-Myc and Mcl-1. Combination with the proteasome inhibitor bortezomib further enhanced ER stress to potentiate MM cell death. The Pim inhibitor SMI-16a also enhanced the reduction of the Pim-2-driven survival factors, IRF4 and c-Myc, in combination with the heat treatment. The heat treatment almost completely eradicated “side population” fractions in RPMI8226 and KMS-11 cells and suppressed their clonogenic capacity as determined by in vitro colony formation and tumorigenic capacity in SCID mice. These results collectively demonstrated that hyperthermia is able to impair clonogenic drug-resistant fractions of MM cells and enhance their susceptibility to chemotherapeutic drugs.