Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association between vascular access failure and the use of specific drugs: the Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (DOPPS).

BACKGROUND Several drugs have been proposed to improve vascular access patency based on favorable anticoagulant, antiplatelet, or vascular-remodeling properties. However, there is little evidence to guide drug strategies. METHODS The association between vascular access patency and the use of specific drugs was studied in a large sample of US hemodialysis patients enrolled in the Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study, an international, prospective, observational study. In general, it was assumed that the drugs were prescribed for indications unrelated to vascular access preservation. Primary (unassisted survival) and secondary vascular access patency (assisted survival) were modeled using Cox regression (time to failure) adjusted for age, sex, race, body mass index, incidence to end-stage renal disease, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, valvular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, aortic aneurysm, deep-vein thrombosis, number of previous permanent accesses, and facility-clustering effects. Fistulae (n = 900) and grafts (n = 1,944) were evaluated separately. Technical failures within the first 30 days of surgical placement were excluded from the analysis. RESULTS Treatment with calcium channel blockers was associated with improved primary graft patency (relative risk [RR] for failure, 0.86; P = 0.034). Aspirin therapy was associated with better secondary graft patency (RR, 0.70; P < 0.001). Treatment with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors was associated with significantly better secondary fistula patency (RR, 0.56; P = 0.010). Patients administered warfarin showed worse primary graft patency (RR, 1.33; P = 0.037). CONCLUSION These findings should help guide clinical trial priorities toward vascular access preservation using one or more of the agents that show significant risk reduction for access failure in this study.
Prototyping Video Games with Animation

This paper outlines a proposed design for PlaySketch, a new video game storyboarding system. PlaySketch borrows ideas from the K-Sketch animation sketching system, which allows short animations to be created in minutes or seconds. We build on K-Sketch in four ways. key frame animation capabilities, a branching timeline view, microphone and web-cam support, and hooks to connect to online game design documents. Keyword-component: storyboard, animation, sketching, video game, pen based user interfaces
P/Taint: unified points-to and taint analysis

Static information-flow analysis (especially taint-analysis) is a key technique in software security, computing where sensitive or untrusted data can propagate in a program. Points-to analysis is a fundamental static program analysis, computing what abstract objects a program expression may point to. In this work, we propose a deep unification of information-flow and points-to analysis. We observe that information-flow analysis is not a mere high-level client of points-to information, but it is indeed identical to points-to analysis on artificial abstract objects that represent different information sources. The very same algorithm can compute, simultaneously, two interlinked but separate results (points-to and information-flow values) with changes only to its initial conditions. The benefits of such a unification are manifold. We can use existing points-to analysis implementations, with virtually no modification (only minor additions of extra logic for sanitization) to compute information flow concepts, such as value tainting. The algorithmic enhancements of points-to analysis (e.g., different flavors of context sensitivity) can be applied transparently to information-flow analysis. Heavy engineering work on points-to analysis (e.g., handling of the reflection API for Java) applies to information-flow analysis without extra effort. We demonstrate the benefits in a realistic implementation that leverages the Doop points-to analysis framework (including its context-sensitivity and reflection analysis features) to provide an information-flow analysis with excellent precision (over 91%) and recall (over 99%) for standard Java information-flow benchmarks. The analysis comfortably scales to large, real-world Android applications, analyzing the Facebook Messenger app with more than 55K classes in under 7 hours.
Is pornography use associated with anti-woman sexual aggression? Re-examining the Confluence Model with third variable considerations

The Confluence Model of sexual aggression (Malamuth, Addison, & Koss, 2000) states that pornography use, thought to promote sexual coercion of women through presentation of submissive female imagery, works in conjunction with sexual promiscuity (SP) and hostile masculinity (HM), proposed sexual aggression risk factors, to produce anti-woman sexual aggression. An Internet based survey (N = 183 adult males) replicated results of previous Confluence Model research, such that men who were high in HM and SP were more likely to report sexual coercion when they frequently, rather than infrequently, used pornography. Exploring new ground, this study also found that HM and SP together were strong predictors of consumption of violent sexual media, in comparison to non-violent sexual media, which suggests that men at high risk of sexual aggression consume different types of sexual material than men at low risk. Further, individual differences in sex drive were found to account for the effects previously attributed to pornography use in statistical tests of the Confluence Model. In the light of third variable considerations, these findings warrant a careful reappraisal of the Confluence Model’s assertion that pornography use is a causal determinant of anti-woman sexual aggression.
An Oral GnRH Antagonist for Endometriosis - A New Drug for an Old Disease.

Endometriosis, a chronic gynecologic disease characterized by attachment and proliferation of endometrial cells outside the endometrial cavity, occurs in 6 to 10% of women of reproductive age1 and is associated with dysmenorrhea, nonmenstrual pelvic pain, dyspareunia, and infertility. The disease is also associated with an increased prevalence of depression, reduction in sexual satisfaction, disrupted personal relations, and loss of work leading to substantial economic cost. The pathogenesis is incompletely understood, but estrogen is integral to endometrial proliferation and function. Although surgical treatment of endometriosis-associated pelvic pain results in symptomatic improvement in most patients,2 medical treatment remains the mainstay of long-term .
Oskar allows nanos mRNA translation in Drosophila embryos by preventing its deadenylation by Smaug/CCR4

Anteroposterior patterning of the Drosophila embryo depends on a gradient of Nanos protein arising from the posterior pole. This gradient results from both nanos mRNA translational repression in the bulk of the embryo and translational activation of nanos mRNA localized at the posterior pole. Two mechanisms of nanos translational repression have been described, at the initiation step and after this step. Here we identify a novel level of nanos translational control. We show that the Smaug protein bound to the nanos 3′ UTR recruits the deadenylation complex CCR4-NOT, leading to rapid deadenylation and subsequent decay of nanos mRNA. Inhibition of deadenylation causes stabilization of nanos mRNA, ectopic synthesis of Nanos protein and head defects. Therefore, deadenylation is essential for both translational repression and decay of nanos mRNA. We further propose a mechanism for translational activation at the posterior pole. Translation of nanos mRNA at the posterior pole depends on oskar function. We show that Oskar prevents the rapid deadenylation of nanos mRNA by precluding its binding to Smaug, thus leading to its stabilization and translation. This study provides insights into molecular mechanisms of regulated deadenylation by specific proteins and demonstrates its importance in development.
Secured Analog to Digital Converter Design Using Logic Obfuscation

With the increase in the use of Integrated Circuits (ICs), fabrication takes place at different parts of the globe. The main aim of the Trojan attacks is to manually or automatically access the main core or node to get sensitive data or information for either personal benefits or for community benefit. This has increased the need to introduce hardware security module to protect the ICs from attacks like malware attack, password attack, phishing etc. These attacks help in either fetching the required data segments or exactly manipulating the architecture of the macros used in the core. This manipulation is called reverse engineering. This type of attacks is prevented by including hardware security modules to either core or to the necessary nodes where transition probability is high such that tapping of data through that node becomes difficult. Few types of hardware attack prevention techniques are encryption, hardware obfuscation, logic locking and IC camouflaging. In this work, hardware obfuscation is used to enhance the security of ICs. This prevention method is based on nodal insertion or insertion to the main core of the architecture. This is based on the application of the architecture of the core in the IC.
The 3D Tractus: a three-dimensional drawing board

We present the 3D Tractus: a simple and inexpensive system for interaction and exploration of three-dimensional (3D) data. The device is based on a traditional drawing board-like mechanical structure that can be easily moved up and down while its surface height is being tracked using a simple sensor. Users interact with a tablet or tablet PC that rests on the surface while simultaneously changing its height. The result is direct mapping of virtual and physical spaces allowing intuitive 3D interaction and data exploration. The 3D Tractus allows us to investigate novel 3D interaction techniques based on sketching and drawing as well as intuitive visual indicators and GUI layouts. The 3D Tractus' simple design concept can be easily adapted to other tabletop systems and the simple nature of the physical interaction allows the design of various exciting applications. We detail here the design and development of the 3D Tractus hardware and software as well as preliminary evaluation of a 3D drawing and sketching application realized using the new tabletop interface.
Bipartitioning and encoding in low-power pipelined circuits

In this article, we present a bipartition dual-encoding architecture for low-power pipelined circuits. We exploit the bipartition approach as well as encoding techniques to reduce power dissipation not only of combinational logic blocks but also of the pipeline registers. Based on Shannon expansion, we partition a given circuit into two subcircuits such that the number of different outputs of both subcircuits are reduced, and then encode the output of both subcircuits to minimize the Hamming distance for transitions with a high switching probability. We measure the benefits of four different combinational bipartitioning and encoding architectures for comparison. The transistor-level simulation results show that bipartition dual-encoding can effectively reduce power by 72.7&percent; for the pipeline registers and 27.1&percent; for the total power consumption on average. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first work that presents an in-depth study on bipartition and encoding techniques to optimize power for pipelined circuits.
Examining the Influence of RETs on Science Teacher Beliefs and Practice

Following the argument that an explicit focus on teacher thinking is an important outcome for professional development (Capps, Crawford, & Costas, 2012; Des- imone, 2009), the research presented here examines the impact of one form of professional development, Research Experiences for Teachers (RETs), has in shaping teachers' be- liefs and affect related to inquiry in the classroom. By examining two distinct forms of RETs, this study incorporates 5 years of data collected from more than 100 RET partic- ipants, which include elementary, middle, and high school teachers. Evidence was drawn from analysis of multiple instruments measuring science teachers' self-efficacy (STEBI), pedagogical discontentment (STPD), teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning (TBI), and Contextual Beliefs about Teaching Science (CBATS). The results indicate that both RET programs were successful in shaping teachers' beliefs and affect—particularly in
Basic study of improving efficiency of wireless power transfer via magnetic resonance coupling based on impedance matching

Wireless power transfer is essential for the spread of Electric Vehicle(EV) usage as it provides a safe and convenient way to charge the EVs. Recently, a highly efficient mid-range wireless power transfer technology using electromagnetic resonance coupling, WiTricity, was proposed. Studies show that the resonant frequencies of the two antennas change according to the air gap in between the antennas. To achieve maximum efficiency using this system, the resonance frequencies of the antennas and the frequency of the system has to be matched. However, when this technology is applied in the MHz range (which allows small sized antennas), the usable frequency is bounded by the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical(ISM) band. Hence a method to fix the resonance frequency within the ISM band is required. In this paper, the possibility of using impedance matching (IM) networks to adjust the resonance frequency of a pair of antennas at a certain distance to 13.56MHz is studied. We studied the electrical characteristics of the antenna with equivalent circuits, electromagnetic analysis and experiments. The equivalent circuits are used as reference to calculate the parameters of the IM circuits. The simulations and experiments shows that the IM circuits can change the resonance frequency to 13.56MHz for different air gaps, thus improving the power transfer efficiency.
Immunohistological study of the anatomic relationship of toxoplasma antigens to the inflammatory response in the brains of mice chronically infected with Toxoplasma gondii

The relationship of toxoplasma antigen(s) to the origin and long-term persistence of the mononuclear cell inflammatory infiltrate that is present in the brains of mice chronically infected with Toxoplasma gondii was studied by using the peroxidase-antiperoxidase immunohistochemical staining technique. C3H/Km mice were infected with the avirulent C37 strain of T. gondii and sequentially sacrificed over the ensuing 107 days. Comparable sections of each brain were prepared for routine light microscopy. Antisera to toxoplasma made in rabbits were used for immunohistological staining, and adjacent slides were also stained with conventional histological stains. The peroxidase-antiperoxidase stain demonstrated toxoplasma tissue cysts, tachyzoites, and intra- and extracellular antigen-antibody reaction products. Early infection was characterized by small tight clusters of free tachyzoites gaining access to brain substance in the absence of an inflammatory response. Once there was disruption of neural parenchyma, a mononuclear cellular infiltrate rapidly ensued. After the first days of infection, mononuclear cells were always present in all infected brains and were anatomically associated with some component of toxoplasma antigen(s). The histological picture of late infection suggested that recurrent episodes of hematogenous dissemination of tachyzoites occurred in infected mice and that such episodes were at least partially responsible for persistence of an antigenic stimulus.
Hepatic Lipase Gene −514 C/T Polymorphism and Premature Coronary Heart Disease

Background A common polymorphism in the hepatic lipase (HL) gene promoter, −514C/T, affecting enzyme activity, has been associated with alterations in plasma lipoprotein levels. However a relationship with coronary heart disease (CHD) is less well documented. Design and methods We studied HL −514 C/T in 562 Caucasian CHD patients aged under 50 years and in 642 Caucasian community recruited subjects without historical evidence of CHD. Results Male CHD subjects (n=490) had a 41% carrier rate for the C to T substitution, compared with 33% in corresponding controls (n=330), [OR=1.42 (95% CI:1.06–1.90), P < 0.02], T allele frequencies being 0.231 and 0.177 respectively [OR=1.39 (1.08–1.78), P < 0.01]. In male CHD subjects, the T allele was associated with higher HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) (CC: 0.95 ± 0.24 (SD); CT: 1.04 ± 0.41; TT: 1.01 ± 0.20 mmol/l, P=0.02, ANOVA) but the trend was not significant in females. In male CHD patients the T allele was more frequently encountered in those with high (> 4.5 mmol/l) than in those with low triglycerides [68% vs. 39%, OR=3.13 (1.54–6.67), P=0.001]. In community control subjects, the T allele was associated with a trend to higher HDL-C levels, the significance varying between subgroups while, in males, serum total and LDL-cholesterol were significantly lower in T homozygotes than in the other two genotypes (LDL-C: 2.73 ± 0.63 vs. 3.56 ± 0.95 mmol/l; P=0.01). During the course of this study, a previously unreported promoter region polymorphism was found exclusively on −514C chromosomes (−592A/G, A allele frequency 0.108, 95% CI 0.09–0.126). It can lead to mistyping of C as T alleles in C/T heterozygotes, resulting in overestimation of −514 T homozygotes. Conclusions The T allele of the hepatic lipase −514 C/T polymorphism is associated with changes in plasma lipids. The superficially paradoxical predisposition to CHD in males is attributable to impairment of TG rich lipoprotein metabolism and reverse cholesterol transport.
Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles: magnetic nanoplatforms as drug carriers

A targeted drug delivery system is the need of the hour. Guiding magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with the help of an external magnetic field to its target is the principle behind the development of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) as novel drug delivery vehicles. SPIONs are small synthetic γ-Fe2O3 (maghemite) or Fe3O4 (magnetite) particles with a core ranging between 10 nm and 100 nm in diameter. These magnetic particles are coated with certain biocompatible polymers, such as dextran or polyethylene glycol, which provide chemical handles for the conjugation of therapeutic agents and also improve their blood distribution profile. The current research on SPIONs is opening up wide horizons for their use as diagnostic agents in magnetic resonance imaging as well as for drug delivery vehicles. Delivery of anticancer drugs by coupling with functionalized SPIONs to their targeted site is one of the most pursued areas of research in the development of cancer treatment strategies. SPIONs have also demonstrated their efficiency as nonviral gene vectors that facilitate the introduction of plasmids into the nucleus at rates multifold those of routinely available standard technologies. SPION-induced hyperthermia has also been utilized for localized killing of cancerous cells. Despite their potential biomedical application, alteration in gene expression profiles, disturbance in iron homeostasis, oxidative stress, and altered cellular responses are some SPION-related toxicological aspects which require due consideration. This review provides a comprehensive understanding of SPIONs with regard to their method of preparation, their utility as drug delivery vehicles, and some concerns which need to be resolved before they can be moved from bench top to bedside.
Optimal Control Design of Multi-Agent Pursuit-Evasion Game with Malicious Pursuer Environment

This paper proposes optimal control policies for multiagent pursuit-evasion game problem under a malicious environment based on reinforcement learning method. Firstly, the healthy pursuers and malicious pursuers are established by using subjectively malicious factor in the cost function and establish a game framework to study the relationship between healthy pursuers, malicious pursuers, and evaders. Then the Hamilton-Jacobi (HJ) equations are used to gain the optimal control strategys. In addition, Nash equilibrium analysis is given. Then the adaptive weight adjustment of the critic-actor neural networks(NNs) are used to achieve the approximation of the control strategys and value functions. Finally, numerical simulation verifies the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.
Improved Generalization from Limiting Attention in a Transformer for Sleep Stage Classification

A transformer architecture has been employed effectively on many tasks such as natural language processing and vision recognition. The most important and general requirement of utilizing the transformer-based architecture is that the model has to be trained on a large-scale dataset before it can be fine-tuned for downstream tasks. However, in our experiments, we figure out that the transformer-based architecture has better generalization capability to extract features from data samples in sleep stage classification than CNN-based architectures, even with a small-scale dataset without any extra pretraining step. In this paper, we show the strength of the transformer architecture with regard to generalization capability over the conventional CNN architecture in sleep stage classification tasks specifically using a small-scale dataset.
Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 Inhibitor Decreases Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Formation through GLP-1-Dependent Monocytic Activity in Mice

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a life-threatening situation affecting almost 10% of elders. There has been no effective medication for AAA other than surgical intervention. Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors have been shown to have a protective effect on cardiovascular disease. Whether DPP-4 inhibitors may be beneficial in the treatment of AAA is unclear. We investigated the effects of DPP-4 inhibitor sitagliptin on the angiotensin II (Ang II)-infused AAA formation in apoE-deficient (apoE-/-) mice. Mice with induced AAA were treated with placebo or 2.5, 5 or 10 mg/kg/day sitagliptin. Ang II-infused apoE-/- mice exhibited a 55.6% incidence of AAA formation, but treatment with sitagliptin decreased AAA formation. Specifically, administered sitagliptin in Ang II-infused mice exhibited decreased expansion of the suprarenal aorta, reduced elastin lamina degradation of the aorta, and diminished vascular inflammation by macrophage infiltration. Treatment with sitagliptin decreased gelatinolytic activity and apoptotic cells in aorta tissues. Sitaglipitn, additionally, was associated with increased levels of plasma active glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). In vitro studies, GLP-1 decreased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, cell migration, and MMP-2 as well as MMP-9 activity in Ang II-stimulated monocytic cells. The results conclude that oral administration of sitagliptin can prevent abdominal aortic aneurysm formation in Ang II-infused apoE-/-mice, at least in part, by increasing of GLP-1 activity, decreasing MMP-2 and MMP-9 production from macrophage infiltration. The results indicate that sitagliptin may have therapeutic potential in preventing the development of AAA.
Apple Target Detection Task in Complex Scenes Based on Yolov5 Method

In this paper, an image recognition model based on YOLOv5 and ResNet50 is proposed for the design of image recognition system of fruit picking robot. We first used YOLOv5 to identify and estimate the quantity, location, maturity, and quality of apples, and then used Resnet50-based deep learning models for further classification. Through in-depth analysis and processing of apple image data sets, our model can accurately identify apples, estimate the quantity and quality of apples, and effectively classify the maturity of apples.