Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Programmatic and Administrative Barriers to High-Risk Infant Follow-Up Care

Abstract Objective This article characterizes programmatic features of a population-based network of high-risk infant follow-up programs and identifies potential challenges associated with attendance from the providers' perspective. Study Design A web-based survey of high-risk infant follow-up program directors, coordinators, and providers of a statewide high-risk infant follow-up system. Frequencies and percentages were used to describe the survey responses. Results Of the 68 high-risk infant follow-up programs in California, 56 (82%) responded to the survey. The first visit no-show rate between 10 and 30% was estimated by 44% of programs with higher no-show rates for subsequent visits. Common strategies to remind families of appointments were phone calls and mailings. Most programs (54%) did not have a strategy to help families who lived distant to the high-risk infant follow-up clinic. Conclusion High-risk infant follow-up programs may lack resources and effective strategies to enhance follow-up, particularly for those living at a distance.
Signal power estimation based on convex optimization for speech enhancement

Although the state-of-the-art single-channel speech enhancement algorithms has gained an appreciable suppression of the noise and improved speech quality to some extent, they are not mostly oriented toward improving the intelligibility of noise- degraded speech signal. In this paper, we propose a novel noise masking method based on convex optimization of the clean speech power to target the enhanced signal intelligibility. In our proposed method, the speech signal is analyzed in Gammatone domain instead of Short-Time Fourier Transform domain. The clean speech power is estimated by the convex optimization algorithm. The ratio mask used to resynthesize speech is estimated by the powers of the estimated clean speech and noise. The combination of the binary mask and ratio mask contributes to a further improvement of the performance. We evaluated the enhancement results for the proposed method using objective and subjective measures. We show that the performance of the proposed approach outperforms the reference methods.
Cytotoxic effect of indigenously fabricated dental magnets for application in prosthodontics

Context: Dental magnets are used for retaining removable prostheses such as a removable partial denture, complete denture, and maxillofacial prosthesis. They provide good retention for the prostheses. However, the elements released from the magnets may be cytotoxic for the tissues. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate their cytotoxic effect on cell lines. Aim: The aim of the study is to check the cytotoxic effect of indigenously fabricated dental magnets on animal cell lines. Materials and Methods: Neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) magnet was tested for cytotoxicity. The magnet was encased in a teflon cylinder. Magnets were placed in the well tissue-cultured plates together with a suspension containing NIH 3T3 mouse fibroblasts (5 × 105 cells/ml). After 3 days of incubation at 37°C, cell viability was determined by mean transit time (MTT) assay. Cells were subsequently dissolved in 100 μl dimethyl sulfoxide with gentle shaking for 2 h at room temperature followed by measurement of absorbance at 570 nm. Eight replicate wells were used at each point in each of four separate measurements. Measured absorbance values were directly used for calculating percent of viable cells remaining after the respective treatment. Data were analyzed statistically with significance level set at P < 0.05. Results: The control group had highest absorbance reading for the MTT assay followed by test group. The lowest values were found with bare Nd-Fe-B magnets. One-way ANOVA test was performed for the data obtained. There was a statistical significant difference seen in the positive control (bare magnets, 44.96) and the test (teflon cased magnets, 96.90) group. Conclusion: More number of viable cells was visible in test group cells indicating that the indigenously fabricated dental magnet did not show any cytotoxicity.
Approches parcimonieuses pour la sélection de variables et la classification: application à la spectroscopie IR de déchets de bois. (Sparse approaches for variables selection and classification: application to IR spectroscopy of wood wastes)

Le present travail de these se propose de developper des techniques innovantes pour l'automatisation de tri de dechets de bois. L'idee est de combiner les techniques de spectrometrie proche-infra-rouge a des methodes robustes de traitement de donnees pour la classification. Apres avoir expose le contexte du travail dans le premier chapitre, un etat de l'art sur la classification de donnees spectrales est presente dans le chapitre 2. Le troisieme chapitre traite du probleme de selection de variables par des approches parcimonieuses. En particulier nous proposons d'etendre quelques methodes gloutonnes pour l'approximation parcimonieuse simultanee. Les simulations realisees pour l'approximation d'une matrice d'observations montrent l'interet des approches proposees. Dans le quatrieme chapitre, nous developpons des methodes de selection de variables basees sur la representation parcimonieuse simultanee et regularisee, afin d'augmenter les performances du classifieur SVM pour la classification des spectres IR ainsi que des images hyperspectrales de dechets de bois. Enfin, nous presentons dans le dernier chapitre les ameliorations apportees aux systemes de tri de bois existants. Les resultats des tests realises avec logiciel de traitement mis en place, montrent qu'un gain considerable peut etre atteint en termes de quantites de bois recyclees
Talking Circles to Improve Diabetes Self-care Management

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of both the Talking Circles (TCs) and diabetes self-management education (DSME) results in better adherence and outcomes for diabetes self-management than DSME alone in American Indians (AIs) with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods A quasiexperimental, mixed-methods approach was used for AIs with uncontrolled T2DM, defined by an A1C > 7.0%. The experimental group (n = 20) participated in a TC and received DSME. The control group (n = 19) received only DSME. Talking Circles were audio-taped and analyzed qualitatively. Quantitative data were analyzed using the generalized estimating equation and Fisher exact test for all study participants every 3 months for 1 year. Results Themes identified by TC participants were spirituality, gratitude, and sharing. Major topics of discussion were the experiences of living with T2DM, including challenges and coping. Evidence of positive trends for the experimental group who received the TC intervention included lower systolic blood pressure, lower A1C, lower weight over time, and increased adherence without incentives. Conclusion Talking Circles may have utility in improving adherence in AI adults with uncontrolled T2DM. Further studies are warranted, including extending the use of the TCs after completion of DSME sessions.
Assessment of the standard level of oreochromis niloticus and chanos chanos located in fish pen and wet market storage based on viola-jones, thresholding and L∗a∗b color space

This paper assesses the standard level of Oreochromis niloticus and Chanos chanos located in fish pen and wet market storage. The researchers build a machine that moves the samples to a part where data gathering happens; a Raspberry Pi captures an image of the sample and this data undergoes to an image processing in order to assess the parameters of length, eyes and texture. Each data is compared from a database of the algorithms of standard fish image. QIM (Quality Index Method) is implemented for the determination of the accuracy of the results. Finally, a GUI displays the real-time results whether the fish is standard or not and a stepper motor sorts the Oreochromis niloticus and Chanos chanos and unknown/non-standard fish. This research provides the fish producer an efficient way to ensure and verify for consumers that the product is of high quality.
Codebook-driven speech enhancement using DNN and harmonic emphasis

This paper presents a novel approach for estimating auto-regressive parameters of speech and noise in the codebook-driven Wiener filtering speech enhancement. The deep neural networks (DNN) of speech and noise are trained separately to select their matched codebook entries offline. At online stage, acoustic features are firstly extracted from noisy speech as the input of DNNs. Then, the optimal codebook entries of speech and noise are selected based on all codebook entries' selection probabilities derived from their respective DNNs. At last, the codebook-driven Wiener filter is constructed by these optimal codebook entries of speech and noise. Such approach increases the selection accuracy of optimal codebook entries comparing with conventional codebook-driven methods. Since the conventional codebook-driven method is only used to model the spectral shape but not the spectral details, which brings much residual noise between harmonics. In order to solve that, the harmonic emphasis technique is adopted to update the codebook-driven Wiener filter. The test results confirm that our proposed method achieves better performance compared with some existing approaches.
An evolution-based strategy for engineering allosteric regulation

Allosteric regulation provides a way to control protein activity at the time scale of milliseconds to seconds inside the cell. An ability to engineer synthetic allosteric systems would be of practical utility for the development of novel biosensors, creation of synthetic cell signaling pathways, and design of small molecule pharmaceuticals with regulatory impact. To this end, we outline a general approach—termed rational engineering of allostery at conserved hotspots (REACH)—to introduce novel regulation into a protein of interest by exploiting latent allostery that has been hard-wired by evolution into its structure. REACH entails the use of statistical coupling analysis (SCA) to identify ‘allosteric hotspots’ on protein surfaces, the development and implementation of experimental assays to test hotspots for functionality, and a toolkit of allosteric modulators to impinge on endogenous cellular circuitry. REACH can be broadly applied to rewire cellular processes to respond to novel inputs.
Unilateral Hearing Loss Is Associated With Impaired Balance in Children: A Pilot Study

Objective: To determine if children with unilateral sensorineural hearing loss (UHL) demonstrate impaired balance compared with their normal hearing (NH) peers. Study Design: Prospective, case-control study. Methods: Balance was assessed in14 UHL and 14 NH children using the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test-2 (BOT-2) and time to fall (TTF) in an immersive, virtual-reality laboratory. Postural control was quantified by center of pressure (COP) using force plates. The effect of vision on balance was assessed by comparing scores and COP characteristics on BOT-2 tasks performed with eyes open and closed. Results: Balance ability as measured by the BOT-2 score was significantly worse in children with UHL compared with NH children (p = 0.004). TTF was shorter in children with UHL compared with NH children in the most difficult tasks when visual and somatosensory inputs were limited (p < 0.01). Visual input improved postural control (reduced COP variability) in both groups in all tasks (p < 0.05) but postural control as measured by COP variability was more affected in children with UHL when visual input was removed while performing moderately difficult tasks (i.e., standing on one foot) (p = 0.02). Conclusion: In this pilot study, children with UHL show poorer balance skills than NH children. Significant differences in TTF between the two groups were only seen in the most difficult tasks and therefore may be missed on routine clinical assessment. Children with UHL appear to rely more on vision for maintaining postural control than their NH peers. These findings may point to deficits not only in the hearing but also the vestibular portion of the inner ear.
The Central Domain of Core RAG1 Preferentially Recognizes Single-stranded Recombination Signal Sequence Heptamer*

RAG1 and RAG2 initiate V(D)J recombination by introducing DNA double strand breaks between each selected gene segment and its bordering recombination signal sequence (RSS) in a two-step mechanism in which the DNA is first nicked, followed by hairpin formation. The RSS consists of a conserved nonamer and heptamer sequence, in which the latter borders the site of DNA cleavage. A region within RAG1, referred to as the central domain (residues 528–760 of 1040 in the full-length protein), has been shown previously to bind specifically to the double-stranded (ds) RSS heptamer, but with both weak specificity and affinity. However, additional investigations into the RAG1-RSS heptamer interaction are required because the DNA substrate forms intermediate conformations during the V(D)J recombination reaction. These include the nicked and hairpin products, as well as likely base unpairing to produce single-stranded (ss) DNA near the cleavage site. Here, it was determined that although the central domain showed substantially higher binding affinity for ss and nicked versus ds substrate, the interaction with ss RSS was particularly robust. In addition, the central domain bound with greater sequence specificity to the ss RSS heptamer than to the ds form. This study provides important insight into the V(D)J recombination reaction, specifically that significant interaction of the RSS heptamer with RAG1 occurs only after the induction of conformational changes at the RSS heptamer.
Cost-Efficient VNF Placement Strategy for IoT Networks with Availability Assurance

Cloud computing and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) have been leveraged in building Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks because of their ability to reduce cost and to provide elastic and resilient services to rapid-growing IoT devices. In this paper, we propose a novel model to track the impact from placement strategy changes to the cost and the availability of deploying VMs of a Virtual Network Functions (VNF). With our model, the unit resource cost increases as there is less resource left on a host. Putting VMs on the same host takes up more resources of the host but saves network bandwidth cost because of co-location. When enforcing anti-affinity for placing VMs on different hosts, experimental results show increases of both availability and inter-host network bandwidth cost, but varying trends of total costs considering other resources.
Durvalumab: an investigational anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody for the treatment of urothelial carcinoma

Our expanding knowledge of immunotherapy for solid tumors has led to an explosion of clinical trials aimed at urothelial carcinoma. The primary strategy is centered on unleashing the immune system by releasing the inhibitory signals propagated by programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and its ligand programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1). Many antibody constructs have been developed to block these interactions and are used in clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration has already approved a number of checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA4) monoclonal antibodies including ipilimumab; anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibodies including nivolumab and pembrolizumab; anti-PD-L1 antibodies including atezolizumab, avelumab, and durvalumab. One of the latest inhibitors is durvalumab, which is a high-affinity human immunoglobulin G1 kappa monoclonal antibody and blocks the interaction of PD-L1 with PD-1 and CD80. Currently, there are a number of ongoing trials in advanced urothelial carcinoma both using durvalumab monotherapy and in combination with other targeted therapies. In addition, durvalumab is being investigated in the non-muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma, which is centered around intravenous formulations. These exciting developments have added a significant number of therapies in a previously limited treatment landscape.
Coordination of Distributed Energy Storage Under Spatial and Temporal Data Asymmetry

We consider the problem of controlling distributed storage in a network with renewable distributed generation to minimize operational cost while satisfying power quality constraints. We assume control is distributed between a global controller (GC) and local controllers (LCs) located at the nodes with storage units. Each LC has access to its most recent net load data and runs at every time step while the GC has delayed data due to smart meter infrastructure or communication network delay, hence runs less frequently. We describe three control schemes: 1) direct storage controller (DSC) in which the GC computes the storage control signals for an upcoming window and the LCs directly use these signals; 2) net load following controller (NLFC) in which the GC computes a net load profile for each node and each LC tries to track its set profile; and 3) nodal slack controller (NSC) in which the GC computes upper and lower bounds on the net load at each node and the LC optimizes the local control action constrained by these bounds. We use a radial network with real load data to compare the performance of these schemes based on arbitrage profit and maximum solar penetration relative to a perfect foresight controller. We find that NSC and NLFC increase the supported maximum solar penetration to 29% and 40%, respectively, as compared to 10% for DSC. Moreover, NSC is able to capture 90.7% of the available arbitrage profits which is significantly higher than that achievable with NLFC and DSC.
SCS-SLM PAPR reduction technique in STBC MIMO-OFDM systems

High data rates transmission and reception is demanded by many wireless applications. STBC MIMO-OFDM is a diversity scheme used in high data rates transmission exploiting space and time. However, MIMO-OFDM also suffers the PAPR problem from OFDM system. In this paper, a solution of high PAPR in MIMO-OFDM system is proposed using SCS-SLM techniques and STBC scheme. This technique is the enhancement of SLM technique using author's previous proposed SCS technique. The combination of SCS and SLM technique in STBC scheme provide another solution of reducing high PAPR. The simulation results show that STBC scheme using SCS-SLM technique improved approximately 3 dB compare to OFDM without PAPR reduction technique. Moreover, BER performance is improved approximately 9.8 dB compare with spatial multiplexing MIMO-OFDM.
Performance evaluation of container and virtual machine running cassandra workload

Today, scalable and high-available NoSQL distributed databases are largely used as Big Data platforms. Such distributed databases typically run on a virtualized infrastructure that could be implemented using Hypervisor-based virtualization or Container-based virtualization. Hypervisor-based virtualization is a mature technology but imposes overhead on CPU, memory, networking, and disk. Recently, by sharing the operating system resources and simplifying the deployment of applications, container-based virtualization is getting more popular. Container-based virtualization is lightweight in resource consumption while also providing isolation. However, disadvantages are security issues and I/O performance. As a result, today these two technologies are competing to provide virtual instances for running big data platforms. Hence, a key issue becomes the assessment of the performance of those virtualization technologies while running distributed databases. This paper presents an extensive performance comparison between VMware and Docker container, while running Apache Cassandra as workload. Apache Cassandra is a leading NoSQL distributed database when it comes to Big Data platforms. As baseline for comparisons we used the Cassandra's performance when running on a physical infrastructure. Our study shows that Docker had lower overhead compared to the VMware when running Cassandra. In fact, the Cassandra's performance on the Dockerized infrastructure was as good as on the Non-Virtualized.
Dynamic secretome of Trichomonas vaginalis: Case study of β-amylases*

The secretion of virulence factors by parasitic protists into the host environment plays a fundamental role in multifactorial host–parasite interactions. Several effector proteins are known to be secreted by Trichomonas vaginalis, a human parasite of the urogenital tract. However, a comprehensive profiling of the T. vaginalis secretome remains elusive, as do the mechanisms of protein secretion. In this study, we used high-resolution label-free quantitative MS to analyze the T. vaginalis secretome, considering that secretion is a time- and temperature-dependent process, to define the cutoff for secreted proteins. In total, we identified 2 072 extracellular proteins, 89 of which displayed significant quantitative increases over time at 37 °C. These 89 bona fide secreted proteins were sorted into 13 functional categories. Approximately half of the secreted proteins were predicted to possess transmembrane helixes. These proteins mainly include putative adhesins and leishmaniolysin-like metallopeptidases. The other half of the soluble proteins include several novel potential virulence factors, such as DNaseII, pore-forming proteins, and β-amylases. Interestingly, current bioinformatic tools predicted the secretory signal in only 18% of the identified T. vaginalis-secreted proteins. Therefore, we used β-amylases as a model to investigate the T. vaginalis secretory pathway. We demonstrated that two β-amylases (BA1 and BA2) are transported via the classical endoplasmic reticulum-to-Golgi pathways, and in the case of BA1, we showed that the protein is glycosylated with multiple N-linked glycans of Hex5HexNAc2 structure. The secretion was inhibited by brefeldin A but not by FLI-06. Another two β-amylases (BA3 and BA4), which are encoded in the T. vaginalis genome but absent from the secretome, were targeted to the lysosomal compartment. Collectively, under defined in vitro conditions, our analysis provides a comprehensive set of constitutively secreted proteins that can serve as a reference for future comparative studies, and it provides the first information about the classical secretory pathway in this parasite.