Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biomarkers for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): A Meta-analysis

Objective To compare the reported accuracy and sensitivity of the various modalities used to diagnose autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in efforts to help focus further biomarker research on the most promising methods for early diagnosis. Methods The Medline scientific literature database was searched to identify publications assessing potential clinical ASD biomarkers. Reports were categorized by the modality used to assess the putative markers, including protein, genetic, metabolic, or objective imaging methods. The reported sensitivity, specificity, area under the curve, and overall agreement were summarized and analyzed to determine weighted averages for each diagnostic modality. Heterogeneity was measured using the I2 test. Results Of the 71 papers included in this analysis, each belonging to one of five modalities, protein-based followed by metabolite-based markers provided the highest diagnostic accuracy, each with a pooled overall agreement of 83.3% and respective weighted area under the curve (AUC) of 89.5% and 88.3%. Sensitivity provided by protein markers was highest (85.5%), while metabolic (85.9%) and protein markers (84.7%) had the highest specificity. Other modalities showed degrees of sensitivity, specificity, and overall agreements in the range of 73%–80%. Conclusions Each modality provided for diagnostic accuracy and specificity similar or slightly higher than those reported for the gold-standard Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) instrument. Further studies are required to identify the most predictive markers within each modality and to evaluate biological pathways or clustering with possible etiological relevance. Analyses will also be necessary to determine the potential of these novel biomarkers in diagnosing pediatric patients, thereby enabling early intervention.
B2O3 on Crystal Behavior of High Ti-Bearing Blast Furnace Slag

e existence and phase structures of high Ti-bearing blast furnace slag at a high temperature are the key issue to flow performance and reaction temperature. It is essential to evaluate the physical-chemical properties, such as viscosity and melting point In this work, a new method of online research of B2O3 on crystal behavior of high Ti-bearing blast furnace slag is proposed. By ultrahightemperature confocal laser scanning microscope and area scanning analysis, it can be concluded that the effect of B2O3 additives on the viscosity has a more obvious effect among the low-temperature region of the slag. Compared to the samples without B2O3 additives, the liquid phase of Ti-bearing slag with B2O3 additives appears earlier at the same experimental temperature, and the solid particles floating on the surface of liquid slag become less. Moreover, the B2O3 additives can promote the migration of titanium elements from the high melting point phase to the low melting point phase, and the transferring quantity increases with the addition of the amount of B2O3 additives. ese results demonstrate that B2O3 additives can restrain the appearance of the perovskite phase, decrease the apparent viscosity, and promote the metallurgical properties of Ti-bearing blast furnace slag.
Bone Marrow and Muscle Fat Infiltration Are Correlated among Postmenopausal Women With Osteoporosis: The AMBERS Cohort Study

Bone and muscle have shown to interact, but little is known about fat within bone and muscle. Clinical studies have isolated fat within bone and muscle using MRI. In this cross‐sectional study, we hypothesized that bone marrow adiposity and muscle adiposity are related and that this relationship is associated with osteoporosis. Postmenopausal women aged 60 to 85 years were recruited as part of the Appendicular Muscle and Bone Extension Research Study (AMBERS). Participants completed dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA) of the hip and spine to diagnose osteoporosis. Muscle adiposity was measured with MRI at the 66% site of the leg. Fat segmentation was achieved using a semi‐automated iterative threshold‐optimizing algorithm (error < 5%). Peripheral quantitative computed tomography measured marrow density of the 4% distal tibia (surrogate for marrow fat) by threshold‐based, edge‐detection segmentations and by examining residuals from trabecular bone density regressed on trabecular tissue mineral density. Muscle adiposity from MRI was regressed on marrow density using linear regression. Models were further examined with an interaction with osteoporosis status. Among 312 women (aged 75.4 ± 5.9 years, body mass index [BMI] 29.5 ± 5.7 kg/m2), a larger amount of muscle fat was associated with lower marrow density at the 66% mid‐tibia (B = 84.08 [27.56], p = 0.002) and at the 4% distal tibia (B = 129.17 [55.96], p = 0.022) after accounting for age, height, weight, average daily energy expenditure, hypertension, and diabetes. Interactions of this relationship with osteoporosis status were also significant. Upon probing these interactions, the relationships were significant only in women with osteoporosis but not in those without osteoporosis. Fat from bone marrow and muscle may be related to one another through the same phenomenon, which is likely also responsible for osteoporosis, but independent of hypertension and diabetes. More research should focus on the potential abnormalities in muscle and bone fat metabolism and mesenchymal cell commitment to fat within patients with osteoporosis. © 2019 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Prevalence of Femoroacetabular Impingement Syndrome among Young and Middle-aged White Adults

Objective. The purpose of the study was to determine the prevalence of femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) in white adults 20 to 49 years of age. Methods. Participants were white men and women aged 20–49 years, recruited through random digit dialing from the population of Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Participants filled out a self-administered questionnaire and underwent a physical examination and radiographs of both hips. FAIS was defined as a combination of hip symptoms, physical signs of impingement, and radiological findings of cam or pincer morphology as recommended by the Warwick Agreement. All analyses were weighted to reflect the population from which the sample was drawn. Results. Data were obtained for 500 participants. In the study population, 48.9% were males and the age distribution was 32.2%, 31.4%, and 36.4% in the groups 20–29, 30–39, and 40–49 years, respectively. The physical signs of impingement correlated significantly with symptoms, but there was no significant association between either symptoms or physical examination with radiographic findings. FAIS on either side was found in 3.0% (95% CI 1.5–4.5) of the population. Conclusion. In this study, FAIS was present in 3% of whites aged 20–49 years. Further research is needed to develop consistent criteria for assessing hip symptoms, physical signs, and hip joint morphology, and to better understand the relationships between them.
Portal requirement for senior citizens based on conceptual knowledge sharing framework

This paper aims to investigate common problems faced by senior citizens while using computer technologies. It also aims to identify the most popular computer technologies used among this community in order to develop a web based knowledge sharing portal. The literature is reviewed and the Knowledge Sharing Framework is discussed as a guide. The paper finds that specific computer technology requirement and suitable content of a web portal that suits senior citizens is essential so that the older generation who see computers and new technology as what they have the potential to be-a tool for expanding their horizons, learning new skills and finding new interests. The paper has real and immediate practical benefits for senior citizens and the Social Welfare Department in that it provides a guide for knowledge sharing among this community. This will result in bridging the communication gap among this community. For future research, it is suggested that the study about the content of a web portal and the design guidelines analysis of the portal.
Disordered eating measures validated in pregnancy samples: a systematic review

ABSTRACT Although disordered eating in pregnancy has been linked to numerous negative consequences, there is currently no published instrument specifically devised to identify or measure such symptoms in pregnancy. As such, this study systematically reviewed the literature to evaluate the performance of general measures of disordered eating in pregnancy samples. A systematic search of the following electronic databases was undertaken from inception to April 2019: Scopus, Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. From 1724 citations, eight publications met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Most of the included studies (6/8) were of reasonable quality. Overall, three self-report inventories (EDE-Q, EDI-2, and DEBS) and one semi-structured clinical interview (EDE) had some form of psychometric information available. Most studies reported reliability, with only two reporting validity. No studies assessed screening accuracy. Other than the EDE-Q, which had preliminary evidence to suggest possible utility in pregnancy, the findings of this review revealed little to no evidence to support the use of general measures of disordered eating in pregnancy. A strong need for research exploring the validity of existing measures in pregnancy samples, including the EDE-Q, was also evident.
STUDY ON ROBOT MANIPULATOR USING (REAL-TIME) NONLINEAR CONTROL-SIMULATION OF ROBOT MANIPULATOR UNDER DISTURBANCE

Robot manipulator is currently essential as human assistant. While performing their tasks, the robot leaved its well structured environment and confronted with unexpected disturbances. The conventional linear control system is insufficient to guarantee the prescribe performance of the robot manipulator when unknown external disturbance is considered. Thus, implementing a nonlinear control system is essential to guarantee the performance of the desired tasks. Firstly, the proportional, integral and derivative (PID) controller will be tested and the restriction of the linear control system is studied. Then, two type of nonlinear controller the PID computed torque control (PIDCTC) and Sliding mode computed torque control (SMCTC) are implemented. From the result, the optimal variable value is determined and performances of three controllers are compared.
Sonochemical synthesis and stabilization of concentrated antimicrobial silver‐chitosan nanoparticle dispersions

This work reports on a green synthetic route to produce concentrated aqueous dispersions of silver nanoparticles (AgNP) employing high-intensity ultrasound (US) and chitosan (CS) as a nontoxic reducing agent for Ag+ salts and AgNP stabilizer. The sonication simultaneously boosted the synthesis and improved the stability of the AgNP, capping them with CS. Hybrid AgNP-CS antimicrobial dispersions, stable for at least 6 months, were synthesized in a simple single step process. The use of US allowed for applying relatively mild processing temperatures (60 °C) and reaction time between 30 min and 3 h to obtain concentrated dispersions of AgNP that otherwise could not be obtained even after 72 h under mechanical stirring at the same reaction conditions. Upon sonication spherical AgNP-CS with a size between 60 and 100 nm were generated, in contrast to the average diameter of ∼200 nm of the particles obtained by stirring. The antibacterial efficiency of the AgNP-CS hybrids was evaluated against the medically relevant pathogens Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The US-synthesized AgNP-CS showed more than three fold higher antibacterial activity compared to the particles obtained under stirring, due to their higher concentration and smaller size. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 45136.
Enhanced selectivity of a polymeric C 18 stationary phase at low temperature and / or at high pressure

Separation of diastereomers of DL--tocopherol was studied by reversed-phase liquid chromatography using three types of stationary phases, polymeric ODS, polymeric C30, and monomeric ODS. Polymeric ODS stationary phase (Inertsil ODS-P, 3 mmID, 20 cm) was effective for the separation of the isomers created by the presence of three chiral centers on the alkyl chain of synthetic DL--tocopherol. Considerable improvement of the separation of isomers was observed on ODS-P phase at high pressure and at low temperature. Complete separation of four pairs of diastereomers was achieved at 12.0 oC, 536 bar, while three peaks were observed when the separation was carried out either at 12.0 oC at low pressure or at 20 oC at 488 bar. Higher temperature (30.0 oC) with the ODS-P phase resulted in only partial separation of the diastereomers even at high pressure. Only slight resolution was observed for the mixture of diastereomers with the C30 stationary phase (Inertsil C30) at 12.0 oC and 441 bar, although the stationary phase afforded greater resolution for and -tocopherol than ODS-P. A monomeric C18 stationary phase did not show any separation at 12.0 oC and 463 bar. The results suggest that the binding site of the polymeric ODS-P phase is selective for flexible alkyl chains that provided the longest retention for the natural form, (R,R,R) form, and the enantiomer, (S,S,S) form, of DL--tocopherol.
Phylogeography of a deep-sea demersal fish, Bothrocara hollandi, in the Japan Sea

The population structure of Bothrocara hollandi, a dominant deep-sea demersal fish in the Japan Sea, was analyzed on the basis of the nucleotide sequence of part of the mitochondrial con- trol region. The 296 individuals analyzed were collected at 17 sites at depths between 375 and 1677 m, and could be divided into a distinct monophyletic group of haplotypes and a paraphyletic group that contained the remaining haplotypes. Individuals in the first group were collected only from shallower sites at depths less than 1100 m, and they were found predominantly off the western part of Honshu Island (the Japanese mainland). Individuals in the second group were collected from all sites at which fish were sampled. The genetic diversity of the first group was greater than that of the second group. As a consequence, the genetic diversity of populations showed a tendency to de- crease with increasing depth. The divergence of the 2 groups was estimated to have occurred during the early part of the last glacial period. The geographical pattern of distribution of haplotypes might be attributable to the accumulation of unique genetic characteristics in different refuges during the last glacial period and to secondary contacts as a result of migration from such refuges after the last glacial period. No genetic differentiation between the 2 morphotypes of this species was detected.
Specification Tests in Panel Data Models Using Artificial Regressions

This paper surveys some applications of artificial regressions including the Gauss-Newton, Double-Length and Binary Response Model regressions as testing tools for panel data models. In addition, several other artificial regression tests are reviewed including Hausman's [1978] specification test, Chamberlain's [1982] omnibus goodness-of-fit test and Wooldridge's [1995] simple variable addition tests for selection bias. The important point to emphasize is that in many cases these artificial regressions provide the easiest way to compute specification tests, and in most cases provide a reasonably easy way to do so.
Tracked-base semi-supervised learning on camera-based system

One problem in supervised learning is that we need a lot of data in order to get a reliable classifier. There are many researches into semi-supervised learning to solve this problem. Many of those can be applied in object recognition and most of them take advantage of cues that come from specific type of input images. This paper will deal with input images from a video and use the fact that an object cannot just disappear and pop out at other place in the frame as our cue. We can track object in a video and label them accordingly to generate labeled data for traditional supervised learning algorithm. This semi-supervised learning method using track information has already been done on data from laser range finder and yield satisfying performance comparable to that of the traditional supervised learning with many times amount of labeled training data. The goal of this project is to extend such result to camera-based system. Our approach is doing background subtraction to filter out stationary objects that we do not care about, doing segmentation on frames to extract meaningful objects and then applying tracking algorithm to labeled more data accordingly. And finally, we could use the extra labeled data for traditional object recognition classifier.
IgM response is a prognostic biomarker of primary biliary cholangitis treated with ursodeoxycholic acid and bezafibrate

Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) patients who are refractory to ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) are at risk for progression to cirrhosis and liver failure. Bezafibrate could be an alternative second‐line therapeutic option in these patients. This study aimed to evaluate the long‐term outcome(s) of combined UDCA and bezafibrate therapy in UDCA‐refractory PBC patients and identify prognostic factors.
Proteomics Profiling of Autologous Blood and Semen Exosomes from HIV-infected and Uninfected Individuals Reveals Compositional and Functional Variabilities*

This is the first comparative study that used SMPP, a step-wise proteomic protocol that employed both SpC and AUC label-free quantitative methods in the analysis of autologous blood and semen exProteins from HIV- and HIV+ participants. Functional validation of the observations uncovered that semen exosomes (SE) but not blood exosomes (BE) are enriched in nucleic acid binding and cell adhesive factors. Our studies highlight that the protein composition of BE and SE are compositionally and functionally different. Graphical Abstract Highlights SMPP enabled analysis of autologous blood and semen proteomes of HIV- and HIV+ participants. Common and distinct exProteins from autologous semen and blood are associated with exosomes. HIV-induced perturbations were less frequent in semen compared to blood. Semen but not blood exosomes is enriched in nucleic acids and protein binding factors. Blood and semen are important body-fluids that carry exosomes for bioinformation transmission. Therefore, characterization of their proteomes is necessary for understanding body-fluid-specific physiologic and pathophysiologic functions. Using systematic multifactorial proteomic profiling, we characterized the proteomes of exosomes and exosome-free fractions from autologous blood and semen from three HIV-uninfected and three HIV-infected participants (total of 24 samples). We identified exosome-based protein signatures specific to blood and semen along with HIV-induced tissue-dependent proteomic perturbations. We validated our findings with samples from 16 additional donors and showed that unlike blood exosomes (BE), semen exosomes (SE) are enriched in clusterin. SE but not BE promote Protein·Nucleic acid binding and increase cell adhesion irrespective of HIV infection. This is the first comparative study of the proteome of autologous BE and SE. The proteins identified may be developed as biomarkers applicable to different fields of medicine, including reproduction and infectious diseases.
Refactoring Reverse Time Migration with Apache Spark: 1. Towards In-Memory Coherence of Seismic-Reflection Wavefields

Reverse-Time Migration (RTM) is widely acknowledged as the most-effective methodology for ‘sharpening’ the images generated by reflection seismology in support of petroleum exploration. Conventional RTM, however, is significantly impacted by two performance-related challenges. Although attention on RTM’s compute-intensive modeling kernel is deferred to a subsequent effort, the need for significant disk I/O is addressed here. Broadly speaking, in-memory parallelism is introduced here through use of Apache Spark via the Thunder Project. In particular, a toy problem demonstrates that disk I/O can be effectively decoupled from computation during application of RTM’s imaging condition a condition that can now be applied as an in-memory cross-correlation between RTM’s forward and reverse wavefields. Isolated prototyping on a laptop is shown to scale out to clusters, where Spark workloads can be managed alongside HPC and Big Data Analytics workloads. It is concluded that refactoring RTM through the progressive introduction of Spark is feasible in the case of addressing I/O bound challenges that impede application of the method in practice; Spark presents additional possibilities for approaching RTM that includes the prospect of completely refactored imaging conditions and forward modeling through Deep Learning.
Improving Academic Performance, Belonging, and Retention through Increasing Structure of an Introductory Biology Course

Integration of active-learning approaches into increased-structure postsecondary classrooms significantly improves student academic outcomes. We describe here two parallel sections of Introductory Biology that shared learning objectives and content but varied in course structure. The large-enrollment traditional course consisted of four 50-minute lectures coupled with minimal active-learning techniques, while an increased-structure intervention course integrated multiple active-learning approaches, had limited enrollment, and comprised three 50-minute lectures combined with a fourth peer-led team-learning discussion section. Additionally, the intervention course employed weekly review quizzes and multiple in-class formative assessments. The academic impact of these two course formats was evaluated by use of common exam questions, final grade, and student retention. We showed that academic achievement and retention of participants enrolled in the intervention course was significantly improved when compared with the traditional section. Further, we explored whether promoting in-class student–student/student–instructor interactions and peer-led discussion sections fostered a greater sense of belonging. At the end of the course, participants in the intervention course reported greater perceptions of classroom belonging. Therefore, this study begins to characterize the importance of combining pedagogical methods that promote both academic success and belonging to effectively improve retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors.