Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aflatoxin B1 exposure increases the risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in chronic hepatitis B virus carriers

The relation between aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and cirrhosis in chronic carriers of hepatitis B virus (HBV) remains inconclusive. This case‐control study nested in a large community‐based cohort aimed to assess the effect of AFB1 exposure on cirrhosis and HCC in chronic HBV carriers. Serum AFB1‐albumin adduct levels at study entry were measured in 232 cirrhosis cases, 262 HCC cases and 577 controls. Multivariate‐adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were estimated using logistic regression. Among all chronic HBV carriers, the time intervals between study entry and diagnosis of HCC, cirrhosis, cirrhotic HCC, and non‐cirrhotic HCC were all significantly (p < 0.0001) shorter in participants with high serum levels of AFB1‐albumin adducts than those with low/undetectable levels. There were significant dose‐response relations with serum AFB1‐albumin adduct level at study entry for cirrhosis (p‐trend = 0.0001) and cirrhotic HCC (p‐trend < 0.0001) newly diagnosed within 9 years after entry as well as non‐cirrhotic HCC (p‐trend = 0.021) newly diagnosed within 4 years after entry. The aORs (95% CIs) for high versus undetectable serum AFB1‐albumin adduct levels were 2.45 (1.51–3.98) for cirrhosis (p = 0.0003), 5.47 (2.20–13.63) for cirrhotic HCC (p = 0.0003), and 5.39 (1.11–26.18) for non‐cirrhotic (p = 0.0368) HCC, respectively. There remained a significant dose‐response relation between serum AFB1‐albumin adduct level and HCC risk (p‐trend = 0.0291) in cirrhosis patients, showing an aOR (95% CI) of 3.04 (1.11–8.30) for high versus undetectable serum levels (p = 0.0299). It is concluded that AFB1 exposure may increase the risk of cirrhosis and HCC in a dose‐response manner among chronic HBV carriers.
Design and analysis of large unity gain bandwidth operational amplifier for low-voltage applications

This work deals with the design and analysis of large unity gain bandwidth operational amplifiers for low voltage applications. Conventional and dynamic threshold MOSFET (DTMOS) based design approaches of Op-Amp in sub-threshold and near-threshold regime have been chosen to achieve larger unity gain bandwidth. Extensive simulations have been done using TSPICE for 90nm and 180 nm separately.42 dB DC gain and 704 KHz unity gain frequency can be achieved in sub threshold region using proposed DTMOS structure. For lower technology node, i.e., for lower gate length of MOSFET, significant improvement in unity gain frequency has been observed. Simulated results demonstrate that the proposed op-Amp is suitable for the low voltage application which requires higher bandwidth. Besides, analysis of Op-Amp in near threshold regime would be promising for the IoT applications.
Correction to: A Psychometric Review of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5): Current Status and Future Directions

On page 66, Table 1: Associations between Openness and the five PID-5 domains were transcribed incorrectly from the Zimmerman et al. (2014) paper. While the values in our original paper were Negative Affectivity-Openness D . 73, DetachmentOpenness D . 58, Antagonism-Openness D . 50, Disinhibition-Openness D . 27, and Psychoticism-Openness D . 72, the actual values should be Negative Affectivity-Openness D ¡. 12, Detachment-Openness D ¡. 21, Antagonism-Openness D . 13, Disinhibition-Openness D . 04, Psychoticism-Openness D . 18. It should be noted that our original paper stated that the associations were significant although the actual associations are all not significant.
Molecular Evidence of Malaria and Zoonotic Diseases Among Rapid Diagnostic Test-Negative Febrile Patients in Low-Transmission Season, Mali.

From November to December 2012 in Sélingué-Mali, blood samples from 88 febrile patients who tested negative by malaria Paracheck® rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) were used to assess the presence of sub-RDT Plasmodium falciparum as well as Borrelia, Coxiella burnetii, and Babesia applying molecular tools. Plasmodium sp. was present among 57 (60.2%) of the 88 malaria RDT-negative patients, whereas the prevalence of Borrelia, C. burnetii, and Babesia were 3.4% (N = 3), 1.1% (N = 1), and 0.0%, respectively. The additional diagnostic use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) identified a high proportion of Plasmodium sp. -positive samples and although this may be a concern for malaria control, the respective PCR-identified malaria infections were less likely responsible for the observed fevers given the low parasite density. Also, the low infection levels of Borrelia and C. burnetii and lack of Babesia among the febrile patients call for further studies to assess the causes of fever among malaria RDT-negative patients in Sélingué.
The Relation Between Use of Mobile Electronic Devices and Bedtime Resistance, Sleep Duration, and Daytime Sleepiness Among Preschoolers

This study investigated the relation between preschoolers’ mobile electronic device (MED) use and sleep disturbances. A national sample of 402 predominantly college-educated and Caucasian mothers of 3–5-year-olds completed a survey assessing their preschoolers’ MED use, bedtime resistance, sleep duration, and daytime sleepiness. Heavier evening and daily tablet use (and to some extent, smartphone use) were related to sleep disturbances. Other forms of MED use were not consistently related to sleep disturbances. In addition, playing games on MEDs at bedtime was related to compromised sleep duration, although other forms of MED use at bedtime were not related to sleep outcomes. Although the relations between MED use and sleep disturbances were small in size, they were larger than the relations between sleep and other predictors in the models. Continued work should investigate how MED exposure is related to children’s cognitive, psychological, emotional, and physiological development, particularly given the popularity and widespread use of these devices.
Recent advances in extracorporeal life support as a bridge to lung transplantation

ABSTRACT Introduction: Invasive mechanical respiratory support in candidate bridging to transplant (BTT) has become common practice in recent years. This usually consists of mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal life support (ECLS) or a combination of both techniques. Areas covered: This review covers epidemiology, technical considerations, indications and outcome of ELCS as BTT. Published literature was identified by searching the MEDLINE bibliographic database (1946-present) and appropriate papers were reviewed. In a retrospective analysis of the period 2010–2016 (n = 92 cases of ECLS bridging, 62% ECLS only) at our institution, bridging success was 73%, with 1-year survival among patients surviving to transplant 78%, surpassing our previously published results between 2005–2009 (bridging success 58%, 1-year survival 58%, p = 0.002 and p = 0.02, respectively). Expert commentary: While ECLS success has influenced lung transplant selection criteria, bridging remains technically and ethically challenging. Candidate selection and organ allocation are crucial to achieving acceptable results.
Intrinsic decomposition from a single spectral image.

In this paper, we present a spectral intrinsic image decomposition (SIID) model, which is dedicated to resolve a natural scene into its purely independent intrinsic components: illumination, shading, and reflectance. By introducing spectral information, our work can solve many challenging cases, such as scenes with metameric effects, which are hard to tackle for trichromatic intrinsic image decomposition (IID), and thus offers potential benefits to many higher-level vision tasks, e.g., materials classification and recognition, shape-from-shading, and spectral image relighting. A both effective and efficient algorithm is presented to decompose a spectral image into its independent intrinsic components. To facilitate future SIID research, we present a public dataset with ground-truth illumination, shading, reflectance and specularity, and a meaningful error metric, so that the quantitative comparison becomes achievable. The experiments on this dataset and other images demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed method on diverse scenes, and reveal that more spectral channels indeed facilitate the vision task (i.e., segmentation and recognition).
Beneficial Effects of High-Density Lipoproteins on Acquired von Willebrand Syndrome in Aortic Valve Stenosis

Abstract Background Infusions of apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I), the major protein component of high-density lipoproteins (HDL), result in aortic valve stenosis (AVS) regression in experimental models. Severe AVS can be complicated by acquired von Willebrand syndrome, a haemorrhagic disorder associated with loss of high-molecular-weight von Willebrand factor (vWF) multimers (HMWM), the latter being a consequence of increased shear stress and enhanced vWF-cleaving protease (ADAMTS-13) activity. Although antithrombotic actions of HDL have been described, its effects on ADAMTS-13 and vWF in AVS are unknown. Methods and Results We assessed ADAMTS-13 activity in plasma derived from a rabbit model of AVS (n = 29) as well as in plasma collected from 64 patients with severe AVS (age 65.0 ± 10.4 years, 44 males) undergoing aortic valve replacement (AVR). In both human and rabbit AVS plasma, ADAMTS-13 activity was higher than that in controls (p < 0.05). Accordingly, AVS patients had less HMWM than controls (66.3 ± 27.2% vs. 97.2 ± 24.1%, p < 0.0001). Both ADAMTS-13 activity and HMWM correlated significantly with aortic transvalvular gradients, thereby showing opposing correlations (r = 0.3, p = 0.018 and r = −0.4, p = 0.003, respectively). Administration of an apoA-I mimetic peptide reduced ADAMTS-13 activity in AVS rabbits as compared with the placebo group (2.0 ± 0.5 RFU/sec vs. 3.8 ± 0.4 RFU/sec, p < 0.05). Similarly, a negative correlation was found between ADAMTS-13 activity and HDL cholesterol levels in patients with AVS (r = −0.3, p = 0.045). Conclusion Our data indicate that HDL levels are associated with reduced ADAMTS-13 activity and increased HMWM. HDL-based therapies may reduce the haematologic abnormalities of the acquired von Willebrand syndrome in AVS.
On the Average Rate and Power Allocation of Uplink Multi-Antenna NOMA Systems

In this paper, we consider low-complexity design of multi-antenna uplink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system. There are 2N user equipments (UEs) distributed uniformly in a circle, where the N UEs nearer to the base station (BS) are called strong UEs and the other N farther UEs are called weak UEs. The BS decodes the strong UEs' signals by zero-forcing (ZF) detector first, and subtracts the strong UEs' signals. Then, the BS decodes the weak UEs' signals by ZF detector. For the proposed scheme we obtain the closed-form expressions of the average rate under three scenarios. In addition, a power allocation policy is proposed to reduce the interference between the UEs and maximize the average sum rate. Numerical results verify the analytical results and show that the average sum rate of the proposed NOMA scheme outperforms that of the orthogonal multiple access scheme employing time division multiple access.
The Reliability and Predictive Validity of the Stalking Risk Profile

This study assessed the reliability and validity of the Stalking Risk Profile (SRP), a structured measure for assessing stalking risks. The SRP was administered at the point of assessment or retrospectively from file review for 241 adult stalkers (91% male) referred to a community-based forensic mental health service. Interrater reliability was high for stalker type, and moderate-to-substantial for risk judgments and domain scores. Evidence for predictive validity and discrimination between stalking recidivists and nonrecidivists for risk judgments depended on follow-up duration. Discrimination was moderate (area under the curve = 0.66-0.68) and positive and negative predictive values good over the full follow-up period (Mdn = 170.43 weeks). At 6 months, discrimination was better than chance only for judgments related to stalking of new victims (area under the curve = 0.75); however, high-risk stalkers still reoffended against their original victim(s) 2 to 4 times as often as low-risk stalkers. Implications for the clinical utility and refinement of the SRP are discussed.
Enhanced protection for multimedia content in cloud

To give rich media administrations, sight and sound registering has risen as an essential innovation to produce, alter, and look media substance, for example, pictures, design, video, sound, thus on. For mixed media applications and administrations over the Internet versatile remote systems, there are solid requests for distributed computing due to the huge measure of calculation required for serving a great many Internet or portable clients at the same time. This paper investigates another technique signature check to upgrade security while putting away content picture, sound, video documents onto cloud server. The proposed work gives office to secure diverse interactive media data like, Images, 2-D recordings, 3-D recordings, sound clasps, tunes, and music cuts. The proposed work can befreelyand secretly make accessible on mists. This work has two novel parts: (i) Novel way to deal with produce marks of 3-D recordings and (ii) For mixed media objects gives disseminated coordinating motor. The mark technique makes 3-D recordings that catch the solid flags in these recordings and it is computationally effective to process and look at and also it requires little stockpiling. The dispersed coordinating motor increase high adaptability and it offer help for various sight and sound question.
Using a latent variable model with non-constant factor loadings to examine PM2.5 constituents related to secondary inorganic aerosols

Factor analysis is a commonly used method of modelling correlated multivariate exposure data. Typically, the measurement model is assumed to have constant factor loadings. However, from our preliminary analyses of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) PM2.5 fine speciation data, we have observed that the factor loadings for four constituents change considerably in stratified analyses. Since invariance of factor loadings is a prerequisite for valid comparison of the underlying latent variables, we propose a factor model that includes non-constant factor loadings that change over time and space using P-spline penalized with the generalized cross-validation (GCV) criterion. The model is implemented using the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm and we select the multiple spline smoothing parameters by minimizing the GCV criterion with Newton's method during each iteration of the EM algorithm. The algorithm is applied to a one-factor model that includes four constituents. Through bootstrap confidence bands, we find that the factor loading for total nitrate changes across seasons and geographic regions.
Evaluating Bone Loss in ISS Astronauts.

INTRODUCTION The measurement of bone mineral density (BMD) by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is the Medical Assessment Test used at the NASA Johnson Space Center to evaluate whether prolonged exposure to spaceflight increases the risk for premature osteoporosis in International Space Station (ISS) astronauts. The DXA scans of crewmembers' BMD during the first decade of the ISS existence showed precipitous declines in BMD for the hip and spine after the typical 6-mo missions. However, a concern exists that skeletal integrity cannot be sufficiently assessed solely by DXA measurement of BMD. Consequently, use of relatively new research technologies is being proposed to NASA for risk surveillance and to enhance long-term management of skeletal health in long-duration astronauts. Sibonga JD, Spector ER, Johnston SL, Tarver WJ. Evaluating bone loss in ISS astronauts.
Simple Understanding and Optimistic Strategy for Coping with Atopic Diseases

In this article, accumulated investigations were reviewed to present an 'IL–5 central hypothesis' for eosinophilic inflammation. In this simple working hypothesis, mechanisms of clinical amelioration of atopic diseases manifested by glucocorticoids or immunosuppressants such as cyclosporin A or FK506 were easily understood to stem from the inhibition of IL–5 production and gene transcription. Screening of macrolide molecules resulted in the detection of nonactin (code name: OM–01), which inhibits production and gene transcription of IL–5 but not of IL–2 or IL–4. It was suggested that this kind of approach may open a new era of 'specific gene transcription control' for the management of allergic and other human disorders.
Blockade of Ca2+-Activated K+ Channels Inhibits Proliferation of Human Endothelial Cells Induced by Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) exerts angiogenic and mitogenic properties in human tissue. Since changes in ion currents modulate essential Ca2+-dependent intracellular pathways in endothelial cells, we have investigated a possible contribution of Ca2+-activated K+ channels (BKCa) on bFGF-induced endothelial cell proliferation. The patch-clamp technique was used to identify BKCa and to study their modulation by bFGF in cultured endothelial cells of human umbilical cord veins (HUVEC). Cell counts of HUVEC were carried out on different days to analyze bFGF-induced cell proliferation and its influence by the specific BKCa blocker iberiotoxin (IBX). Using single-channel recordings, we found characteristic BKCa with a single-channel slope conductance of 170.3 ± 2.1 pS (n = 7), half-maximal activation at internal pCa = 5.7 (n = 5; test potential: 80 mV), and dose-dependent block by IBX (25–100 nmol/l). In cell-attached patches bFGF (50 ng/ml) caused a significant increase in the open-state probability (NPo) after 6 min at test potentials of 80 and 100 mV (n = 28; p < 0.001), respectively, which lasted up to 30 min. After preincubation with pertussis toxin (100 ng/ml; 4 h) bFGF superfusion did not cause a significant increase in BKCa activity until 25 min had passed (n = 20; p < 0.01). Addition of 100 nmol/l IBX to the pipette solution caused a total block of BKCa within 2 min in cell-attached patches, whereas bFGF (50 ng/ml) was not able to activate BKCa. When incubated with IBX (25–100 nmol/l) every 2 days, bFGF-induced proliferation of HUVEC was significantly decreased by 50 (–41%) and 100 nmol/l (–50%) IBX (n = 5; p < 0.001) after 7 days. We conclude that activation of BKCa by bFGF may play an important role in bFGF-induced proliferation of human endothelial cells and thus might be important in the process of angiogenesis and vascular remodelling.
Inter-Person Occlusion Handling with Social Interaction for Online Multi-Pedestrian Tracking

Inter-person occlusion handling is a critical issue in the field of tracking, and it has been extensively researched. Several state-ofthe-art methods have been proposed, such as focusing on the appearance of the targets or utilizing knowledge of the scene. In contrast with the approaches proposed in the literature, we propose to address this issue using a social interaction model, which allows us to explore spatio-temporal information pertaining to the targets involved in the occlusion situation. Our experimental results show promising results compared with those obtained using other methods. key words: image processing, computer vision, inter-person occlusion, online tracking
Microbial variations in approximal dental plaque.

Three sequential samples from the distal surface of the upper first premolars of ten 13- to 14-year-old children were collected over a period of 12 weeks. Viable bacterial counts were made on each sample and representative strains of the genera Streptococcus, Actinomyces, Veillonella, Neisseria, Fusobacterium, Rothia, Lactobacillus, Bacterionema, Eubacteria and Arachnia were identified on the basis of morphology, physiological tests, cell wall and acid end product analysis and serology. The qualitative composition of the 58 samples obtained from the 20 sampled areas examined was similar, although some surfaces were consistently free of specific organisms during the test period, this was particularly evident with the lactobacilli. The mean percentages of the predominant genera were Actinomyces 34.92, Streptococcus 22.9, Veillonella 13.07, and ‘bacteroides’ 7.97. Streptococcus mutans mean percentage was 2.17, Strep. sanguis 5.9, Strep. salivarius 0.67, Strep. milleri 0.51, A. israelii 16.5 and A. viscosus together with A. naeslundii 19.05. Consideration of the results indicates that each of the sites represents a distinct ecological niche that should be looked at in isolation, and that the following parameters may be important in relating the bacterial population of a site to the formation of a carious lesion: (a) qualitative composition; (b) persistence of specific bacteria; (c) concentration of specific bacteria, and (d) the stability of the numerical concentration of specific bacteria.
Sensory-to-motor transformations in the vestibular system.

The vestibulo-ocular reflex is a compensatory reflex that results in eye movements that are 180 degrees out of phase with movements of the head but that match head velocity. Because of these reflex eye movements that are equal, but opposite to head movement, the viewed object remains on the fovea of the retina during head movement, thus resulting in visual acuity that is not degraded by visual image slip on the retina. This reflex is compensatory over a large spectrum of head movements in any plane of space. This is accomplished by a spatial and temporal transformation of the input from the vestibular semicircular canals to the motoneurons that innervate the extraocular muscles. The reflex is a three-neuron arc. The middle leg of the reflex is accomplished by secondary vestibular neurons whose axons branch to innervate more than one extraocular muscle. These secondary neurons thus program an eye movement rather than the contraction of a single extraocular muscle. These programmed eye movements that match the plane of the particular semicircular canal that is the input to the reflex constitute the spatial transformation. Primary vestibular afferents innervating the semicircular canals have a broad range of response dynamics that either lead, lag or are in phase with head velocity. The predominant vestibular primary afferent input to the middle leg of the reflex, the same secondary neurons as mentioned above, is parcellated so that afferents more in phase with head velocity predominate. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Einstellungs- und Entlohnungsprofile: Soziodemographische Treiber der Karriere

Die Schwierigkeiten jüngerer Frauen, Beschäftigter mit langer Berufserfahrung, die den Betrieb wechseln wollen, sowie älterer Arbeitssuchender sind auch von der in Deutschland häufig verwandten Senioritätsentlohnung verursacht. Betriebe, die mit der Betriebszugehörigkeitsdauer stark steigende Löhne anbieten, scheuen davor zurück, diese Personengruppen einzustellen und beschneiden dadurch deren Karrierechancen, weil sie im Prinzip attraktive Arbeitsplätze anbieten können. Der Beitrag präsentiert empirische Evidenz, zeigt den theoretischen Hintergrund auf und diskutiert Lösungsmöglichkeiten.