Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trends in Real-World Neovascular AMD Treatment Outcomes in the UK

Purpose To report trends in real-world outcomes of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) in the United Kingdom (UK) over the last decade. Design Systematic review. Methods Medline, PubMed, and Embase databases were searched from 9 April 2010 to 8 April 2020 for publications that met the inclusion criteria: treatment-naïve eyes, UK-only data and ≥1 year of follow-up. ICHOM (International Consortium for Health Outcome Measures) outcomes and study quality were assessed. Visual acuity (VA) trends were assessed in studies with ≥100 eyes at baseline. Results Twenty-six studies (n=25,761 eyes) were included, meeting 14–17 out of 20 Institute of Health Economics Quality Appraisal of Case Series checklist domains. Only ranibizumab and aflibercept outcome data were available. The mean injection number in the first year of treatment was 5.9 in publications from 2010 to 2015 and 7.1 from 2015 to 2020. Average baseline VA and mean one-year, two-year and three-year VA gains gradually improved over the last decade. Longer-term studies reported that the visual gains achieved in the first year of treatment were rarely maintained, with under-treatment a likely contributing factor. Conclusion UK real-world outcomes have improved over the last decade with improved service delivery and the adoption of more proactive treatment regimens but are still not always as impressive as registration clinical trial results. Access to longer-acting anti-VEGF therapies would reduce the treatment burden for patients, carers, and the healthcare system, potentially making replication of clinical trial results possible in the NHS.
Optimal Delivery of Follow-Up Care After Radical Cystectomy for Bladder Cancer

Purpose of Review To identify components representing optimal delivery of follow-up care after radical cystectomy because of bladder cancer and report the current level of evidence. Methods We conducted a systematic literature search of the following databases: Cochrane, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, Physiotherapy Evidence Database and ClinicalTrials.gov. The search results were managed in Covidence Reference Manager and abstracts were screened by title. Articles relevant to the subject of interest were included and the results are reported narratively. Results Several studies have evaluated the positive impact of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) on length of stay, albeit not on the further impact on 90-day postoperative complication rate, functional recovery, or mortality. Minimally invasive surgery may result in a slighter shorter length of stay compared to open surgery. Physical training combined with nutritional intervention can improve functional recovery up to one year after surgery. Nutritional supplements can preserve muscle and bone mass, and potentially improve recovery. Patient education in stoma care and prevention of infection can significantly improve self-efficacy and avoid symptoms of infection postoperatively. Moreover, specific devices like applications (apps) can support these efforts. Continued smoking increases the risk of developing postoperative complications while no evidence was found on the impact of continued alcohol drinking. Currently, there is no evidence on psychological well-being, sexual health, or shared decision making interventions with an impact on rehabilitation after radical cystectomy. Conclusion Data are scarce but indicate that peri- and postoperative multi-professional interventions can reduce prevalence of sarcopenia, and improve functional recovery, physical capacity, nutritional status, and self-efficacy in stoma care (level 1 evidence). Continued smoking increases the risk of complications, but the effects of a smoking and alcohol intervention remain unclear (level 3 evidence). The results of this review provide guidance for future directions in research and further attempts to develop and test an evidence-based program for follow-up care after radical cystectomy.
Survey on the Quality of Care Standards in a Nursing/Midwifery Training Hospital at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2019

Objective The aim of this article was to conduct a survey on the quality of care standards in nursing/midwifery training hospital of Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methods A multiple methods design was used for the study. For the quantitative phase, 35 nurses, 35 patients, and 52 patient charts were selected by simple random sampling from eight randomly selected wards of the hospital. For the qualitative phase, purposive sampling was employed to select participants for focus group discussion and in-depth interview. Twelve instructors and 11 head nurses were recruited. The Quality Audit tool developed by Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health was applied. Results It was found that the nursing and midwifery service quality standards were low and did not meet Ministry of Health standards. The chart review showed that 83% of nursing and midwifery assessments were not completed within eight hours of patient arrival, and in over half the charts (58%), there was no written evidence of compilation of data based on Gordon's functional model. Only two wards met Standard 1 with adequate medical equipment for nursing diagnosis or intervention. Seventy-five percent of the wards had a scarcity of materials and supplies needed to provide a quality nursing service. Half the nursing stations had adequate patient visibility, and half had an organized chart filing system based on the patient’s bed number. Conclusion A high proportion of wards were not meeting Ministry of Health standards for nursing midwifery services. Improvement in care standards is vital to enable the hospital to function as a clinical setting for the education of health-care students. This might be achieved through ongoing attention to quality improvement and a program of in-service training regarding national care quality standards for managers, nurses, and midwives.
Long Term Follow-Up of Prototheca keratitis: A Case Report

Background Prototheca spp. are rare human pathogens, and only three cases of Prototheca keratitis have been reported. They were treated with anti-fungal drugs and surgical excision. Two of the three cases were successful, and the case of an immunocompromised patient was not successful. Thus, the best treatment of Prototheca keratitis is still undetermined, and further investigations are needed. The purpose of this report is to present our findings in a case of Prototheca keratitis that was successfully treated with topical medications without surgical excision. Methods This study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethics Committee of Hidaka Medical Center, Toyooka Hospital. A written informed consent was obtained from the patient before beginning the medical treatments. Case Report A 75-year-old man with a history of stage 4 prostate carcinoma and bilateral limbal stem cell deficiency had undergone keratoepithelioplasty on his left eye for the deficiency. Postoperatively, a greyish-white epithelial opacity was noted on the central cornea of his left eye, and he had been treated with topical fluorometholone and oral dexamethasone together with a therapeutic contact lens. Corneal smears and contact lens swabs were positive for Prototheca spp. He required a continuous treatment with amphotericin B (AMPH-B) ointment, topical fluconazole (FLCZ), and voriconazole (VRCZ). This treatment protocol was effective, but recurrences developed when his general condition worsened. Conclusion Our findings indicate that Prototheca keratitis can be successfully treated but not cured with topical AMPH-B, FLCZ, and VRCZ without surgical treatment. However, recurrences can develop when the general condition of the patient worsens. Thus, continuous monitoring and treatment are necessary in cases of Prototheca keratitis.
Prevalence and predictors of problematic smart phone use among pre-varsity young people in Ibadan, Nigeria

Introduction smart phone possession and use among young people is on the increase in Africa and phone addiction has been shown to be similar to substance use dependence. However, there is barely any literature focused on the effect of smart phone use on young people in Nigeria. This study looked at the prevalence of problematic smart phone use and associated factors among pre-varsity young people in Ibadan. Methods problematic smart phone use was assessed using the 27-item mobile phone problem use scale and scored on a 5-point Likert scale. Scores 27-76 indicated low-moderate degree and scores ≥ 77 indicated moderate-severe degree of problematic smart phone use. Chi square test was used to compare problematic phone use with some selected respondents' characteristics and p was 0.05. Results five hundred and seventy five participants were recruited, age range 14-24 years and 46.0% were males. Almost all (96.7%) of the respondents had smart phone access and 46.5% had moderate-severe problematic phone use. Young people who were males, had their parents paying for the data they use, had high extroversion, low conscientiousness and low intellect scores were likely to have problematic phone use. The identified predictors for problematic phone use were male gender (OR=1.77, 95% CI: 1.26-2.50), high extroversion (OR=1.68, 95% CI: 1.16-2.43) and low conscientiousness (OR=2.09, 95% CI: 1.41-3.09). Conclusion there was a high rate of problematic phone use among these young people. Interventions to promote responsible smart phone use is required to counter this problem.
Fingolimod (FTY720) ameliorates experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) : II. FTY720 decreases infiltration of Th17 and Th1 cells into the central nervous system in EAE

Fingolimod (FTY720), a sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulator, is highly effective in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and decreases circulating mature lymphocytes by inhibiting S1P-dependent lymphocyte egress from secondary lymphoid organs. Infiltration of encephalitogenic CD4 T cells plays a critical role in the development and progression of EAE in mice. In this study, we investigated the effects of FTY720 on infiltration of interleukin 17 (IL-17)-expressing helper T cells (Th17 cells) and interferon-γ-expressing type 1 helper T cells (Th1 cells) into the spinal cords in EAE mice induced by immunization with myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG). Prophylactic treatment with FTY720 at an oral dose of 0.3 mg/kg significantly inhibited the development of EAE and markedly reduced the frequency of Th17 and Th1 cells in the spinal cords of EAE mice. On the contrary, the frequency of Th17 and Th1 cells in draining inguinal lymph nodes was increased to approximately 2-fold by FTY720, suggesting sequestration of myelin antigen-specific Th cells into draining lymph nodes. Moreover, we found that Th17 and Th1 cells could migrate toward 10 nM S1P and that the pretreatment with 1 nM FTY720-phosphate, an active metabolite of FTY720, almost completely inhibited S1P-induced migration of these Th cells. On the other hand, FTY720-phosphate up to 100 nM showed no clear effect on generation of these Th cells or cytokine production by them. From these results, the ameliorating effects of FTY720 on EAE are likely due to reduction of infiltration of encephalitogenic Th17 and Th1 cells into the central nervous system.
SEEF-ALDR: A Speaker Embedding Enhancement Framework via Adversarial Learning based Disentangled Representation

Speaker verification, as a biometric authentication mechanism, has been widely used due to the pervasiveness of voice control on smart devices. However, the task of “in-the-wild” speaker verification is still challenging, considering the speech samples may contain lots of identity-unrelated information, e.g., background noise, reverberation, emotion, etc. Previous works focus on optimizing the model to improve verification accuracy, without taking into account the elimination of the impact from the identity-unrelated information. To solve the above problem, we propose SEEF-ALDR, a novel Speaker Embedding Enhancement Framework via Adversarial Learning based Disentangled Representation, to reinforce the performance of existing models on speaker verification. The key idea is to retrieve as much speaker identity information as possible from the original speech, thus minimizing the impact of identity-unrelated information on the speaker verification task by using adversarial learning. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework can significantly improve the performance of speaker verification by 20.3% and 23.8% on average over 13 tested baselines on dataset Voxceleb1 and 8 tested baselines on dataset Voxceleb2 respectively, without adjusting the structure or hyper-parameters of them. Furthermore, the ablation study was conducted to evaluate the contribution of each module in SEEF-ALDR. Finally, porting an existing model into the proposed framework is straightforward and cost-efficient, with very little effort from the model owners due to the modular design of the framework.
Casimir force and its effects on pull-in instability modelled using molecular dynamics simulations

We present a new methodology to incorporate the Casimir forces within the molecular dynamics (MD) framework. At atomistic scales, the potential energy between two particles arising due to the Casimir effect can be represented as U(rij) = C/r7. Incorporating the Casimir effect in MD simulations requires the knowledge of C, a problem hitherto unsolved. We overcome this by equating the total potential energy contributions due to each atomistic pair with the potential energy of continuum scale interacting bodies having similar geometries. After having identified the functional form of C, standard MD simulations are augmented with the potential energy contribution due to pairwise Casimir interactions. The developed framework is used to study effects of the Casimir force on the pull-in instability of rectangular and hollow cylindrical shaped deformable electrodes separated by a small distance from a fixed substrate electrode. Our MD results for pull-instability qualitatively agree with the previously reported analytical results but are quantitatively different. The effect of using longer-ranged Casimir forces in a constant temperature environment on the pull-in behaviour has also been studied.
Nivolumab Treatment of Burkitt Lymphoma: A Case Report

Background: Burkitt lymphoma is an uncommon form of lymphoma that affects approximately 1200 patients per year in the United States. It is aggressive and has a worse prognosis in older patients (1). During the past decade, high-dose chemotherapy regimens have been well tolerated and have dramatically improved event-free survival at 2 years, from 56% to 92% (2). However, successful treatment of refractory disease remains a formidable clinical challenge, especially when the disease is rapidly progressive. Objective: To describe successful treatment of refractory Burkitt lymphoma using nivolumab. Case Report: A 72-year-old man went to another hospital because of abdominal discomfort. He was discharged because his laboratory values were unremarkable (except for a serum creatinine level of 100.8 mmol/L [1.14 mg/dL]) and computed tomography found diffuse, peritoneal, soft-tissue density. Four days later, he returned with abdominal pain and was found to have acute renal failure with a serum creatinine level of 300.6 mmol/L (3.4 mg/dL). An omental biopsy established the diagnosis of Burkitt lymphoma; the specimen was positive for CD20, CD10, BCL-6, and c-MYC and was negative for CD3, CD5, BCL1, and MUM1, with Ki-67 above 95% and t(8;14) (MYC/IGH) fusion and MYC rearrangement. His tumor cells were negative for Epstein–Barr virus and programmed cell death ligand-1 (PDL1), although a very small number of macrophages and lymphocytes within the tumor were positive for PD-L1. Tumor lysis syndrome was diagnosed, hemodialysis was started, 1 dose of corticosteroid was administered, and he was transferred to our facility for additional care. We continued hemodialysis. Lumbar puncture was negative for cancer cells, and we administered prophylactic intrathecal methotrexate. We also started the prevailing standard-ofcare chemotherapy with the Magrath regimen (R-CODOX-M [rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, methotrexate] for cycles 1 and 3 and R-IVAC [rituximab, ifosfamide, etoposide, high-dose cytarabine] for cycles 2 and 4). Follow-up imaging after cycle 1 showed a marked reduction in tumor burden, with corresponding reductions in lactate dehydrogenase Figure 1. LDH levels over time.
Agroforests, Swiddening and Livelihoods Between Restored Peat Domes and River: Effects of the 2015 Fire Ban in Central Kalimantan (Indonesia)

SUMMARY If 150 years of continued use counts as a sustainability indicator, the river-bank agroforests in the peat landscapes of Central Kalimantan suggest solutions for current challenges. The 2015 fire season in Indonesian peatlands triggered a fire ban and peatland restoration response, prioritizing canal blocking and rewetting. However, sustainable livelihood options remain elusive. We report local ecological knowledge of soils and vegetation applied in land use choices in swiddens and agroforests in five Dayak Ngaju villages in Jabiren Raya and Kahayan Hilir subdistrict (Pulang Pisau, C. Kalimantan, Indonesia) on the banks of the Kahayan river and discuss impacts of fire-ban policies. Plots accessible from the river with no or shallow peat were traditionally preferred for swiddening, with various indicator plants and soil characteristics underpinning the choices. Without swiddening farmers depend on off-farm jobs and agroforests for income. More policy attention for non-peat riparian-zone agroforestry as part of peat landscape livelihood systems is warranted. HIGHLIGHTS Dayak Ngaju villagers have traditionally combined agroforest and swidden/fallow rotations on riverbanks and shallow peat. Rich ethnobotanical knowledge, local soil quality indicators and ceremonies reflect long-term presence in this landscape. The 2015 fire ban has effectively stopped local rice cultivation as technical alternatives are not attractive. The agroforests, with durian and rubber as marketed products, continue to support livelihoods, but are not sufficient. Temporary jobs on canal blocking for the peatland restoration agency have filled the gap, but are not expected to last.
Thermal comfort under weightlessness: A physiological prediction

This study investigated the physiological thermal response of people under simulated weightlessness using a 6° head down bed rest (HDBR) model to ensure the human body functions in the weightlessness way. Thermal responses of six male participants were experimentally determined. The relationship between thermal comfort and heart rate variability (HRV) was also scrutinized. Physiological responses of participants under different environmental conditions were observed including core temperature, sweating, and most importantly, HRV. Elevated core temperatures were observed amongst participants, with a maximum increment of 0.5°C. The sweating of participants under simulated weightlessness was conspicuously retarded, requiring a 2–4°C increase in environmental temperature to start sweating. Body regional differences in the sweating were also observed. The HRV index ‘LF/HF’, which reflects the balance of the autonomous nervous system, was found to vary with the environment and closely associated with the variation in the thermal comfort scores. Participants under simulated weightlessness had higher mean LF/HF when they felt comfortable, and they preferred a warmer environment in comparison to under normal gravity condition. An altered thermoregulation of the human body under simulated weightlessness was indicated by our findings. The use of HRV index could provide a useful prediction of subjective thermal comfort under weightlessness.
Math coaches, specialists, and student achievement: Learning from the data

To support continuous professional development model in the teaching and learning of mathematics, many districts and schools have begun hiring elementary mathematics coaches and/or specialists (MCSs). However, limited large-scale empirical research exists that determines how the use of MCSs affect student learning and achievement. Kristin E. Harbour and Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides begin to fill in this gap by using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to explore the relationship between the presence and responsibilities of elementary MCSs and 4th-grade student achievement in mathematics. Based on their findings, they share practical implications for districts and administrators to consider.
Observer-based robust control for flexible-joint robot manipulators: A state-dependent Riccati equation-based approach

In this paper, the robust control problem is tackled by employing the state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) for uncertain systems with unmeasurable states subject to mismatched time-varying disturbances. The proposed observer-based robust (OBR) controller is applied to two highly nonlinear, coupled and large robotic systems: namely a manipulator presenting joint flexibility due to deformation of the power transmission elements between the actuator and the robot known as flexible-joint robot (FJR) and also an FJR incorporating geared permanent magnet DC motor dynamics in its dynamic model called electrical flexible-joint robot (EFJR). A novel state-dependent coefficient (SDC) form is introduced for uncertain EFJRs. Rather than coping with the OBR control problem for such complex uncertain robotic systems, the main idea is to solve an equivalent nonlinear optimal control problem where the uncertainty and disturbance bounds are incorporated in the performance index. The stability proof is presented. Solving the complicated robust control problem for FJRs and EFJRs subject to uncertainty and disturbances via a simple and flexible nonlinear optimal approach and no need of state measurement are the main advantages of the proposed control method. Finally, simulation results are included to verify the efficiency and superiority of the control scheme.
Exploring Support for and Solutions to Family CABs (Chauffeur-Associated Burdens)

Children who are too young to drive and adults who are unable to drive can represent a significant transportation burden, one typically shouldered by family members, i.e., “family chauffeur-associated-burdens” (Family CABs). This research examines how one’s experience chauffeuring family members influences support for strategies to address family chauffeuring burdens. The research also examines if one’s own experience chauffeuring family members affects perceptions of the possibility that they may reach a point at which they are no longer able to drive, and potentially become a transportation burden to others. Descriptive statistics and linear and logistic regression models of a household survey (n = 349) demonstrate the significance of demographics in the type and extent of chauffeuring burdens. Chauffeur youth and money spent chauffeuring are each positively-correlated with the desire to move to a more walkable place to address chauffeuring burdens. Alternately, youth and being male are each positively-correlated with favoring technological solutions (e.g., autonomous vehicles) to address chauffeuring burdens. One’s own experience as a chauffeur does not significantly influence perceptions of eventually becoming a transportation burden for others. Women are more likely to prefer moving to a more walkable location and relying on family or friends if they are no longer able to drive, while men prefer the idea of relying on autonomous vehicles if they lose the ability to drive. Findings from this work can guide appropriate planning, policy, and technological responses to chauffeuring burdens.