Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Management of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculopathy

Purpose of review To review the recent advances in the management and treatment of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculopathy (CIDP). Recent findings Recent studies confirm the efficacy/safety of long-term intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) and short-term subcutaneous immunoglobulin (SCIg) therapy in CIDP. New outcome measures have been recently proposed and further studies evaluated the properties of those already in use. The presence of antibodies against proteins at the node of Ranvier was associated with specific clinical features and treatment response. Fingolimod adds to the list of immunosuppressive agents that failed to be effective in a controlled trial. Summary Several studies evaluating the best strategy to provide maintenance IVIg treatment in CIDP are in progress. SCIg were shown to be an alternative to IVIg for maintenance treatment while their efficacy as initial therapy should be further addressed. New outcome measures have been shown to be effective in detecting treatment response in clinical trials, but their use in clinical practice remains uncertain. Similarly unsettled is the role of nerve imaging techniques as biomarker in CIDP. The discovery of antibodies against proteins at the node of Ranvier has rekindled a keen interest in the pathogenesis of CIDP and the potential therapeutic role of new agents.
Improving Motivation Through Real-Time fMRI-Based Self-Regulation of the Nucleus Accumbens

Objective: Impaired nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activation is associated with amotivation and anhedonia, which are resistant to treatment with antipsychotics and antidepressants in schizophrenia. In this study, healthy participants were trained to self-regulate the activation of their NAcc, a brain region that plays an important role in motivation, using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neurofeedback. Method: The experimental group (N = 19) received feedback from the NAcc, whereas the control group (N = 5) received “sham” feedback from the posterior parahippocampal gyrus, a control brain region not normally related to motivation. All participants were trained to use mental strategies to regulate their NAcc activations in a 3T MRI scanner. Results: For the learning effect of NAcc regulation, we found that the majority of participants (74%) in the experimental group successfully learned to self-regulate the NAcc. They also showed improved behavioral performance in motivation and decreased functional connectivity between the NAcc and the ventral medial prefrontal cortex and an increase in small-world properties in the reward circuit after training, indicating improved information integration in reward processing. However, improvement in motivation and modification of function connectivity were not observed in the sham control group and the participants who failed to self-regulate the NAcc in the experimental group. Self-regulation was influenced by the baseline motivation. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the NAcc could be self-regulated using real-time fMRI neurofeedback and can result in improved motivation in cognitive tasks.
In vitro characterization of the glucuronidation pathways of licochalcone A mediated by human UDP-glucuronosyltransferases

Abstract This study aimed to characterize the glucuronidation pathway of licochalcone A (LCA) in human liver microsomes (HLM). HLM incubation systems were employed to catalyze the formation of LCA glucuronide. The glucuronidation activity of commercially recombinant UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) isoforms toward LCA was screened. Kinetic analysis was used to identify the UGT isoforms involved in the glucuronidation of LCA in HLM. LCA could be metabolized to two monoglucuronides in HLM, including a major monoglucuronide, namely, 4-O-glucuronide, and a minor monoglucuronide, namely, 4′-O-glucuronide. Species-dependent differences were observed among the glucuronidation profiles of LCA in liver microsomes from different species. UGT1A1, UGT1A3, UGT1A7, UGT1A8, UGT1A9, UGT1A10 and UGT2B7 participated in the formation of 4-O-glucuronide, with UGT1A9 exhibiting the highest catalytic activity in this biotransformation. Only UGT1A1 and UGT1A3 were involved in the formation of 4′-O-glucuronide, exhibiting similar reaction rates. Kinetic analysis demonstrated that UGT1A9 was the major contributor to LCA-4-O-glucuronidation, while UGT1A1 played important roles in the formation of both LCA-4-O- and 4′-O-glucuronide. UGT1A9 was the major contributor to the formation of LCA-4-O-glucuronide, while UGT1A1 played important roles in both LCA-4-O- and 4′-O-glucuronidation.
Impact on HbA1c and body weight of switching from other GLP‐1 receptor agonists to semaglutide: A model‐based approach

Semaglutide is a glucagon‐like peptide‐1 (GLP‐1) analogue approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The impact of switching treatment from another GLP‐1 receptor agonist (GLP‐1RA) to semaglutide was investigated by analyses of exposure‐response models.
A cascaded six order bandpass siw filter using electric and magnetic couplings technology

In this paper, a six order bandpass SIW filter is presented which can realize efficiently by using the technology of electric and magnetic couplings. It is made up of a layer substrate. The six order SIW filter is a narrow bandpass microwave filter through electric coupling and magnetic coupling of SIW resonators or cavities. The cascaded resonators of the filter are formed by properly etching the slots on the top metal plane of a SIW cavity. The slots create the electric coupling. The magnetic coupling is formed by period metallic vias in the middle of a SIW cavity. Furthermore, the electric and magnetic couplings achieves two transmission zero points. The electric coupling have influence on the upper transmission zero point, and magnetic coupling have influence on the lower transmission zero point. It is demonstrated that the SIW filter has a bandwidth of 1.5 GHz at a center frequency of 15 GHz. The measured results have a good agreement with the simulated results.
Low-Cost Millimeter-Wave Antenna with Simultaneous Sum and Difference Patterns for 5G Point-to-Point Communications

This work presents a low-cost solution for developing tracking antennas in millimeter-wave bands. Specifically, the objective is to design an antenna that simultaneously generates sum and difference patterns at W band for 5G point-topoint communications. To this end, the use of radial line slot array (RLSA) antennas with a 3D-printable feeding structure based on a new technology known as gap-waveguide is proposed. The feeding structure is located below the ground plane of the RLSA, and it consists of a Butler matrix finished in a circular cavity that couples to the RLSA, simultaneously generating the sum and difference patterns. This technique combines a sum beam and a difference beam to accurately determine the direction of arrival of the signal. It can be used for point-to-point communications, ensuring precise tracking and a stable connection. Simulations show good behavior of both the feeding structure and the RLSA antenna, with stable sum and difference patterns.
Real-Time Collision Detection for Deformable Characters with Radial Fields

Many techniques facilitate real-time collision detection against complex models. These typically work by pre-computing information about the spatial distribution of geometry into a form that can be quickly queried. When models deform though, expensive pre-computations are impractical. We present radial fields: a variant of distance fields parameterised in cylindrical space, rather than Cartesian space. This 2D parameterisation significantly reduces the memory and computation requirements of the field, while introducing minimal overhead in collision detection tests. The interior of the mesh is defined implicitly for the entire domain. Importantly, it maps well to the hardware rasteriser of the GPU. Radial fields are much more application-specific than traditional distance fields. For these applications - such as collision detection with articulated characters—however, the benefits are substantial.
Feedback and Feedforward Inhibition May Resonate Distinctly in the Ripple Symphony

Hippocampal sharp waves are transient deflections of local field potentials (LFPs) recorded in the stratum radiatum of CA1 during immobility and slow-wave sleep. Ripple oscillations are superimposed on sharp waves, but they emerge from the stratum pyramidale. These sharp-wave ripple complexes are
Model Checking Quantum Systems - A Survey

This article discusses the essential difficulties in developing model-checking techniques for quantum systems that are never present in model checking classical systems. It further reviews some early researches on checking quantum communication protocols as well as a new line of researches pursued by the authors and their collaborators on checking general quantum systems, applicable to both physical systems and quantum programs.
Conceptual design of a dual-band circularly polarized square loop antenna under even-mode resonance

A dual-frequency, circularly polarized (CP) square loop antenna under even-mode resonance is presented. The square loop antenna is diagonally fed by a fork-like dipole launcher. Four tuning stubs are symmetrically introduced near the current distribution nulls of the second odd-order resonant even-mode. In this way, the second odd-order even-mode is excited and dual-band circularly polarized characteristic can be realized. The dual-band behavior of the antenna is numerically studied and a closed-form formula is deduced. The preliminary result in this work is expected to be useful in future dual-band CP loop antenna designs.
Unified mechanisms for self-RNA recognition by RIG-I Singleton-Merten syndrome variants

The innate immune sensor retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) detects cytosolic viral RNA and requires a conformational change caused by both ATP and RNA binding to induce an active signaling state and to trigger an immune response. Previously, we showed that ATP hydrolysis removes RIG-I from lower-affinity self-RNAs (Lässig et al., 2015), revealing how ATP turnover helps RIG-I distinguish viral from self-RNA and explaining why a mutation in a motif that slows down ATP hydrolysis causes the autoimmune disease Singleton-Merten syndrome (SMS). Here we show that a different, mechanistically unexplained SMS variant, C268F, which is localized in the ATP-binding P-loop, can signal independently of ATP but is still dependent on RNA. The structure of RIG-I C268F in complex with double-stranded RNA reveals that C268F helps induce a structural conformation in RIG-I that is similar to that induced by ATP. Our results uncover an unexpected mechanism to explain how a mutation in a P-loop ATPase can induce a gain-of-function ATP state in the absence of ATP.
Topics in Random Matrices and Statistical Machine Learning

This thesis consists of two independent parts: random matrices, which form the first one-third of this thesis, and machine learning, which constitutes the remaining part. The classical Wishart matrix has been defined only for the values β = 1, 2 and 4 (corresponding to real, complex and quaternion cases respectively), where β indicates the number of real matrices needed to define a particular type of Wishart matrix. The moments and inverse moments of Wishart matrices have their theoretical and practical importance. In the works of Graczyk, Letac and Massam (2003, 2004), Matsumoto (2012), Collins et al. (2014), a certain additional condition is assumed in order to derive a formula for finite inverse moments of Wishart matrices. Here, we address the necessity of this additional condition. In general, we consider the question of having finite inverse moments for two bigger classes of Wishart-type matrices: the (m,n, β)-Laguerre matrices defined for continuous values of β > 0 and compound Wishart matrices for the values of β = 1 (real) and 2 (complex). We show that the c-th inverse moment of a (m,n, β)-Laguerre matrix is finite if and only if c < (m−n+1)β/2, for β > 0. Moreover, we deduce that the c-th inverse moment of a compound Wishart matrix is finite if and only if c < (m − n + 1)β/2, for β = 1, 2. The definition of compound Wishart matrix in quaternion case (β = 4) is not so coherent yet, so the condition for finiteness of inverse moments in this case is a future work. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the subject of the universal consistency of the k-nearest neighbor rule in general metric spaces. The k-nearest neighbor rule is a well-known learning rule and one of the most important. Given a labeled sample, the k-nearest neighbor rule first find ‘k’ data points in the sample, which are closest to x based on a distance function and then predicts the label of x as being the most commonly occurring label among the picked ‘k’ labels. There is an error if the predicted label is not
Radiofrequency Ablation Combined With Transarterial Chemoembolization for Specially Located Small Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Objective: To investigate the safety and efficacy of radiofrequency ablation combined with transarterial chemoembolization in patients with specially located small hepatocellular carcinoma. Materials and Methods: Between March 2014 and March 2017, a total of 26 patients with 26 lesions (10 perivascular, 6 subdiaphragmatic, 5 subcapsular, 5 perivascular, and subdiaphragmatic location; mean diameter 2.12 (0.62) cm), who received radiofrequency ablation–transarterial chemoembolization treatment, were retrospectively analyzed. Local tumor response was assessed by computed tomography/magnetic resonance imaging 1 month after the procedure. Tumor-free survival was also assessed according to the modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors. Complications were evaluated according to the National Cancer Institute’s Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (version 4.0). Results: Complete response was achieved in all patients 1 month after the procedure. During a median follow-up duration of 16.76 months (95% confidence interval: 7.78-25.73 months), local tumor recurrence occurred in 2 patients and new intrahepatic lesions developed in 7 patients. The 1-, 2-, and 3-year cumulative local tumor progression rates were 3.84%, 7.69%, and 7.69%, respectively. The median tumor-free survival duration was 21.96 months (95% confidence interval: 17.58-26.34 months). The 1-, 2-, and 3-year tumor-free survival rates were 67.4%, 46.1%, and 39.3%, respectively. Conclusion: The radiofrequency ablation–transarterial chemoembolization combination therapy appears to be safe and effective and might be a treatment option for specially located small hepatocellular carcinoma lesions that have a risk of incomplete ablation or major complications.
Adult serum 25(OH)D3 in Gansu province, northwest China: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES This analytical cross-sectional study investigated the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and its association with metabolic risk factors in the adult population of Gansu Province, China. METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN In total, 11,157 healthy participants (4,740 men and 6,417 women) were enrolled. A questionnaire was used to assess general characteristics and personal habits. We detected 25-hydroxyvitamin D and associated metabolic parameters through electrochemiluminescence immunoassays. RESULTS The prevalence of severe deficiency (<10 ng/mL), deficiency (10-20 ng/mL), insufficiency (20-30 ng/mL), and sufficiency (>=30 ng/mL) among the participants was 17.3%, 64.6%, 11.8%, and 6.3%, respectively. Vitamin D deficiency was more prevalent in women than in men (82.5% vs 81.1%, p<0.001). The significant predictors of vitamin D deficiency included younger age and female sex (p<0.05), whereas sun exposure, physical activity, and calcium (Ca) supplementation were associated with less vitamin D deficiency (p<0.05). Serum 25(OH)D3 was inversely associated with parathyroid hormone (r=-0.279, p<0.001) and positively associated with serum Ca (r=0.239, p<0.001), serum P (r=0.090, p=0.018), LDL cholesterol (r=0.100, p=0.008), and BMI (r=0.093, p=0.014). No significant association was observed between serum 25(OH)D3 and metabolic disorders. CONCLUSIONS Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent among the adult population of Gansu Province, northwest China, especially young physically inactive and overweight women with limited sunlight exposure, whose biomarkers put them at greater risk of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.
Concentrations of health-promoting phytochemicals in ripe mango fruit triggered by postharvest application of elicitors.

BACKGROUND Mango fruit harvested at green mature stage were treated with methyl jasmonate (MeJA), nitric oxide (NO), or salicylic acid (SA) to investigate their effects on phytochemical concentrations in ripe fruit. RESULTS Fruit fumigated with MeJA showed the highest increase in the concentrations of gallic acid (33.0%), caffeic acid (80.0%), total phenols (38.4%), and total antioxidant capacity (20.9%) in the peel, and total carotenoids (48.7%) in the pulp, compared to control. The fruit dipped in SA showed the highest increase in the concentrations of lupeol (59.8%) and ferulic acid (73.2%) in the pulp and ferulic acid (67.4%) in the peel. Fruit fumigated with NO or MeJA showed the highest concentrations of lupeol in the peel (94.3%, 119.4%), and gallic acid (37.9%, 61.0%), total phenols (62.7%, 31.0%), and ascorbic acid (17.7%, 18.8%) in the pulp respectively. All the elicitor treatments were significantly effective in increasing concentrations of mangiferin and chlorogenic acid in the pulp and peel, vanillic acid in the peel, and total antioxidant capacity in the pulp. CONCLUSION Overall, MeJA (10-5 to 10-4 mol L-1 ) was identified as the most effective elicitor for triggering phytochemical production during ripening of harvested mango fruit. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.
The progress in FSS radomes design

It has been proved that the FSS radome is capable of RCS reduction of array system especially for the airborne radar system. This kind radome has been applied in quite a few fighter such as the raptors. Although much efforts for many years are deserted to the design techniques in FSS stealth radome, few results has been published. In this paper, a brief introduction of progress made in FSS radome design are present. These techniques have been pattented.
Well-Balanced or too Matchy-Matchy? The Controversy over Matching in Difference-in-Differences.

The United States’ health care system is experiencing remarkable change. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—and its subsequent revisions —reshaped insurance for millions of Americans (Courtemanche et al. 2017). The Affordable Care Act also introduced myriad payment reforms to improve quality and value (Zuckerman et al. 2016). Within commercial insurance, provider consolidation (Post, Buchmueller, and Ryan 2018) and experiments with reference pricing (Robinson and Brown 2013) are having potentially profound effects on health care prices. These remarkable changes demand evaluation. Difference-in-differences has emerged as the key strategy to evaluate changes in health care. These methods are intuitive, simple, and relatively easy to implement (Angrist and Pischke 2010). This, coupled with researchers’ increasing access to rich datasets and enhanced computing power, has led to an explosion in the use of difference-in-differences as a tool to evaluate programs and policy. This is a welcome development. Yet despite its widespread adoption, major issues related to specification of difference-in-differences have gone unresolved. Chief among them is the choice of comparison group. Researchers require a comparison group, not exposed to the target intervention, to serve as the counterfactual for the treated group. One option for the comparison group is all untreated units. Yet the treated units and comparison units may be meaningfully different, either with respect to the study outcomes or covariates related to the outcomes. Outcomes for the treated and comparison groups may also not be “parallel” prior to the start of the intervention. Parallel trends are often considered to be the key assumption underlying the validity of difference-in-differences. ©Health Research and Educational Trust DOI: 10.1111/1475-6773.13015 DEBATE-COMMENTARY
Quantifying ventilation change due to radiation therapy using 4DCT Jacobian calculations

Purpose Regional ventilation and its response to radiation dose can be estimated using four‐dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) and image registration. This study investigated the impact of radiation therapy (RT) on ventilation and the dependence of radiation‐induced ventilation change on pre‐RT ventilation derived from 4DCT. Methods and materials Three 4DCT scans were acquired from each of 12 subjects: two scans before RT and one scan 3 months after RT. The 4DCT datasets were used to generate the pre‐RT and post‐RT ventilation maps by registering the inhale phase image to the exhale phase image and computing the Jacobian determinant of the resulting transformation. The ventilation change between pre‐RT and post‐RT was calculated by taking a ratio of the post‐RT Jacobian map to the pre‐RT Jacobian map. The voxel‐wise ventilation change between pre‐ and post‐RT was investigated as a function of dose and pre‐RT ventilation. Results Lung regions receiving over 20 Gy exhibited a significant decrease in function (3.3%, P < 0.01) compared to those receiving less than 20 Gy. When the voxels were stratified into high and low pre‐RT function by thresholding the Jacobian map at 10% volume expansion (Jacobian = 1.1), high‐function voxels exhibited 4.8% reduction in function for voxels receiving over 20 Gy, a significantly greater decline (P = 0.037) than the 2.4% reduction in function for low‐function voxels. Ventilation decreased linearly with dose in both high‐function and low‐function regions. High‐function regions showed a significantly larger decline in ventilation (P ≪ 0.001) as dose increased (1.4% ventilation reduction/10 Gy) compared to low‐function regions (0.3% ventilation reduction/10 Gy). With further stratification of pre‐RT ventilation, voxels exhibited increasing dose‐dependent ventilation reduction with increasing pre‐RT ventilation, with the largest pre‐RT Jacobian bin (pre‐RT Jacobian between 1.5 and 1.6) exhibiting a ventilation reduction of 4.8% per 10 Gy. Conclusions Significant ventilation reductions were measured after radiation therapy treatments, and were dependent on the dose delivered to the tissue and the pre‐RT ventilation of the tissue. For a fixed radiation dose, lung tissue with high pre‐RT ventilation experienced larger decreases in post‐RT ventilation than lung tissue with low pre‐RT ventilation.