Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Exchange Mechanism to Coordinate Flexibility in Residential Energy Cooperatives

Energy cooperatives (ECs) such as residential and industrial microgrids have the potential to mitigate increasing fluctuations in renewable electricity generation, but only if their joint response is coordinated. However, the coordination and control of independently operated flexible resources (e.g., storage, demand response) imposes critical challenges arising from the heterogeneity of the resources, conflict of interests, and impact on the grid. Correspondingly, overcoming these challenges with a general and fair yet efficient exchange mechanism that coordinates these distributed resources will accommodate renewable fluctuations on a local level, thereby supporting the energy transition. In this paper, we introduce such an exchange mechanism. It incorporates a payment structure that encourages prosumers to participate in the exchange by increasing their utility above baseline alternatives. The allocation from the proposed mechanism increases the system efficiency (utilitarian social welfare) and distributes profits more fairly (measured by Nash social welfare) than individual flexibility activation. A case study analyzing the mechanism performance and resulting payments in numerical experiments over real demand and generation profiles of the Pecan Street dataset elucidates the efficacy to promote cooperation between co-located flexibilities in residential cooperatives through local exchange.
Teaching and evaluating smartphone applications: The effectiveness of a curriculum expansion

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) technology is increasingly utilized to support lifestyle recommendations through nutrient and blood pressure tracking. As patients pose questions regarding the validity and use of this technology, curriculum targeting mHealth technology is essential for the future health professionals. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a curriculum expansion which addressed mHealth technology provided to physician assistant (PA) and clinical nutrition (CN) students enrolled in an academic health center. In addition, the validity of the mobile application (app), MyNetDiary, was determined. Methods: A smartphone application appraisal tool, based on scientific recommendations, was developed. Students were taught how to use this tool to evaluate mobile apps. Students received instruction on providing patient education on mobile apps used to track calories and nutrients and mobile medical apps to measure blood pressure. Pre-/post-surveys and objectively structured clinical examinations measured students' confidence and abilities in teaching patients to use MyNetDiary and Withings Health Mate apps. Wilcoxon rank sum tests evaluated statistical significance. Validity of nutrient estimates was determined using Spearman correlations. Results: Confidence levels improved significantly on all items measured for both PA and CN students (P < 0.001). During the objectively structured clinical examination, all students demonstrated effective communication skills with 98.4% successfully demonstrating of how to enter foods into the MyNetDiary app and 94.3% connecting the blood pressure cuff with the withings app. Significant correlations were found when comparing MyNetDiary to SuperTracker (all P < 0.001). Discussion: This study investigated and demonstrated the effectiveness of an expanded curriculum designed to enhance students' confidence and skills in providing lifestyle counseling incorporating the use of mHealth technology.
Online Learning to Rank with List-level Feedback for Image Filtering

Online learning to rank (OLTR) via implicit feedback has been extensively studied for document retrieval in cases where the feedback is available at the level of individual items. To learn from item-level feedback, the current algorithms require certain assumptions about user behavior. In this paper, we study a more general setup: OLTR with list-level feedback, where the feedback is provided only at the level of an entire ranked list. We propose two methods that allow online learning to rank in this setup. The first method, PGLearn, uses a ranking model to generate policies and optimizes it online using policy gradients. The second method, RegLearn, learns to combine individual document relevance scores by directly predicting the observed list-level feedback through regression. We evaluate the proposed methods on the image filtering task, in which deep neural networks (DNNs) are used to rank images in response to a set of standing queries. We show that PGLearn does not perform well in OLTR with list-level feedback. RegLearn, instead, shows good performance in both online and offline metrics.
Immediate Effects of Dry Needling as a Novel Strategy for Hamstring Flexibility: A Single-Blinded Clinical Pilot Study.

Context: There are numerous studies on the benefits of dry needling (DN) for pain relief. No studies exist examining the effects of DN on hamstring flexibility. Objective: To determine the immediate effects of DN on hamstring flexibility in healthy subjects with shortened hamstrings. Design: A single-blinded, pretest-posttest clinical pilot study. Setting: A university physiotherapy clinic. Subjects: A total of 15 healthy subjects (female = 11; age = 23.26 [4.3] y) with shortened hamstrings participated in this study. Intervention: Subjects received a single session of DN. Three locations on the hamstring muscle group were needled, each for 1 minute. Main Outcome Measures: The active knee extension test, muscle compliance, passive peak torque, and stretch tolerance were measured at baseline, immediately, and 15 minutes after DN. Results: There were statistically significant improvements in all outcome measures immediately after DN and at the 15-minute follow-up. The effect sizes for all outcome measures were large (Cohen's d ≥ 0.8). No serious adverse events were observed with DN. Conclusions: This is the first study that demonstrates the beneficial effects of DN on hamstring flexibility, muscle compliance, and stretch tolerance without added stretching. The beneficial effects of DN should encourage clinicians to use DN as a novel strategy for increasing muscle flexibility.
Mediators of Inflammation – A Potential Source of Biomarkers in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common tumour of the oral cavity, associated with significant morbidity and mortality. It is a multifactorial condition, both genetic and environmental factors being involved in its development and progression. Its pathogenesis is not fully elucidated, but a pivotal role has been attributed to inflammation, strong evidence supporting the association between chronic inflammation and carcinogenesis. Moreover, an increasing number of studies have investigated the role of different mediators of inflammation in the early detection of OSCC. In this review, we have summarized the main markers of inflammation that could be useful in diagnosis and shed some light in OSCC pathogenesis.
Case-only Methods Identified Genetic Loci Predicting a Subgroup of Men with Reduced Risk of High-grade Prostate Cancer by Finasteride

In the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT), genotypes that may modify the effect of finasteride on the risk of prostate cancer have not been identified. Germline genetic data from 1,157 prostate cancer cases in PCPT were analyzed by case-only methods. Genotypes included 357 SNPs from 83 candidate genes in androgen metabolism, inflammation, circadian rhythm, and other pathways. Univariate case-only analysis was conducted to evaluate whether individual SNPs modified the finasteride effect on the risk of high-grade and low-grade prostate cancer. Case-only classification trees and random forests, which are powerful machine learning methods with resampling-based controls for model complexity, were employed to identify a predictive signature for genotype-specific treatment effects. Accounting for multiple testing, a single SNP in SRD5A1 gene (rs472402) significantly modified the finasteride effect on high-grade prostate cancer (Gleason score > 6) in PCPT (family-wise error rate < 0.05). Men carrying GG genotype at this locus had a 55% reduction of the risk in developing high-grade cancer when assigned to finasteride (RR = 0.45; 95% confidence interval, 0.27–0.75). Additional effect-modifying SNPs with moderate statistical significance were identified by case-only trees and random forests. A prediction model built by the case-only random forest method with 28 selected SNPs classified 37% of PCPT men to have reduced risk of high-grade prostate cancer when taking finasteride, while the others have increased risk. In conclusion, case-only methods identified SNPs that modified the effect of finasteride on the risk of high-grade prostate cancer and predicted a subgroup of men who had reduced cancer risk by finasteride.
Screening for Humoral Immunodeficiency in Patients with Community-Acquired Pneumonia

BACKGROUND Immunodeficiency is an underrecognized risk factor for infections, such as community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). OBJECTIVE We evaluated patients admitted with CAP for humoral immunodeficiency. DESIGN Prospective cohort study SETTING Inpatients PATIENTS, INTERVENTION, AND MEASUREMENTS We enrolled 100 consecutive patients admitted with a diagnosis of CAP from February 2017 to April 2017. Serum IgG, IgM, IgA, and IgE levels were obtained within the first 24 hours of admission. CURB-65 score and length of hospital stay were calculated. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and simple linear regression analysis were used in data analysis. RESULTS The prevalence of hypogammaglobinemia in patients with CAP was 38% (95% CI: 28.47% to 48.25%). Twenty-seven of 100 patients had IgG hypogammaglobinemia (median: 598 mg/dL, IQ range: 459-654), 23 of 100 had IgM hypogammaglobinemia (median: 38 mg/dL, IQ range: 25-43), and 6 of 100 had IgA hypogammaglobinemia (median: 36 mg/dL, IQ range: 18-50). The median hospital length of stay for patients with IgG hypogammaglobinemia was significantly higher when compared to patients with normal IgG levels (five days, IQ range [3-10] vs three days, IQ range [2-5], P = .0085). Fourteen patients underwent further immune evaluation, resulting in one diagnosis of multiple myeloma, three patients diagnosed with specific antibody deficiency, and one patient diagnosed with selective IgA deficiency. CONCLUSION There is a high prevalence of hypogammaglobinemia in patients hospitalized with CAP, with IgG and IgM being the most commonly affected classes. IgG hypogammaglobinemia was associated with an increased length of hospitalization. Screening immunoglobulin levels in CAP patients may also uncover underlying humoral immunodeficiency or immunoproliferative disorders.
Oncolytic properties of non-vaccinia poxviruses

Vaccinia virus, a member of the Poxviridae family, has been extensively used as an oncolytic agent and has entered late stage clinical development. In this study, we evaluated the potential oncolytic properties of other members of the Poxviridae family. Numerous tumor cell lines were infected with ten non-vaccinia poxviruses to identify which virus displayed the most potential as an oncolytic agent. Cell viability indicated that tumor cell lines were differentially susceptible to each virus. Raccoonpox virus was the most potent of the tested poxviruses and was highly effective in controlling cell growth in all tumor cell lines. To investigate further the oncolytic capacity of the Raccoonpox virus, we have generated a thymidine kinase (TK)-deleted recombinant Raccoonpox virus expressing the suicide gene FCU1. This TK-deleted Raccoonpox virus was notably attenuated in normal primary cells but replicated efficiently in numerous tumor cell lines. In human colon cancer xenograft model, a single intratumoral inoculation of the recombinant Raccoonpox virus, in combination with 5-fluorocytosine administration, produced relevant tumor growth control. The results demonstrated significant antitumoral activity of this new modified Raccoonpox virus armed with FCU1 and this virus could be considered to be included into the growing armamentarium of oncolytic virotherapy for cancer.
Recovery after stroke: not so proportional after all?

Background The proportional recovery rule asserts that most stroke survivors recover a fixed proportion of lost function. Reports that the rule can be used to predict recovery, extraordinarily accurately, are rapidly accumulating. Here, we show that the rule may not be as powerful as it seems. Methods We provide a formal analysis of the relationship between baseline scores (X), outcomes (Y) and recovery (Y-X), to highlight the shortcomings of the proportional recovery rule, and illustrate those problems with simulations in which synthetic recovery data are derived from different types of recovery processes. Findings When the correlation between baseline scores and recovery is stronger than that between baselines scores and outcomes, the former can create an inflated impression of how predictable outcomes really are given baseline scores. This often happens when outcomes are less variable than baseline scores, as is common in empirical studies of recovery after stroke. Moreover, we cannot use the results of these correlations to distinguish proportional recovery from recovery which is either not consistently proportional, or not proportional at all. Interpretation Analyses relating baseline scores to subsequent change are a minefield: our formal analysis applies as consistently outside the area of stroke as it does within it. One implication of our analysis is that the proportional recovery rule is not as predictive of real recovery after stroke as recent empirical studies suggest. Another is that different analytical methods will be required to ascertain whether recovery is even proportional at all.
Delegating Sex: Differential Gene Expression in Stolonizing Syllids Uncovers the Hormonal Control of Reproduction

Stolonization in syllid annelids is a unique mode of reproduction among animals. During the breeding season, a structure resembling the adult but containing only gametes, called stolon, is formed at the posterior end of the animal. When the stolons mature, they detach from the adult and the gametes are released into the water column. The process is synchronized within each species, and it has been reported to be under environmental and endogenous control, probably via endocrine regulation. To further understand the reproduction in syllids and to elucidate the molecular toolkit underlying stolonization, we generated Illumina RNA-seq data from different tissues of reproductive and non-reproductive individuals of Syllis magdalena, and characterized gene expression during the stolonization process. Several genes involved in gametogenesis (ovochymase, vitellogenin, testis-specific serine/threonine-kinase), immune response (complement receptor 2), neuronal development (tyrosine-protein kinase Src42A), cell proliferation (alpha-1D adrenergic receptor), and steroid metabolism (hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 2) were found differentially expressed in the different tissues and conditions analyzed. In addition, our findings suggest that several neurohormones, such as methyl farnesoate, dopamine and serotonin, might trigger the stolon formation, the correct maturation of gametes and the detachment of stolons when gametogenesis is complete. The process seems to be under circadian control, as indicated by the expression patterns of r-opsins. Overall, our results shed light into the genes that orchestrate the onset of gamete formation, and improve our understanding of how some hormones, previously reported to be involved in reproduction and metamorphosis processes in other invertebrates, seem to also regulate reproduction via stolonization.
Detecting overlapping community structure: Estonian network of payments

Revealing the community structure exhibited by real networks is a fundamental phase towards a comprehensive understanding of complex systems beyond the local organization of their components. Community detection techniques help on providing insights into understanding the local organization of the components of networks. In this study we identify and investigate the overlapping community structure of an interesting and unique case of study: the Estonian network of payments. In order to perform the study, we use the Clique Percolation Method and explore statistical distribution functions of the communities, where in most cases we found scale-free properties. In this network the nodes represent Estonian companies and the links represent payments done between the companies. Our study adds to the literature of complex networks by presenting the first overlapping community detection analysis of a country's network of payments.
Safe Casting and Reliable Cusp Reconstruction Assisted by Micro‐Computed Tomographic Scans of Fossil Teeth

Dental replicas are frequently utilized in paleoanthropological studies of perikymata and enamel hypoplasia. However, fossil teeth are often fragile and worn, causing two problems: (1) the risk of damage by removing enamel fragments when impression‐making material is separated from the fossil tooth surface, and (2) the need to reconstruct worn portions of the crown to assess perikymata number, distribution, and hypoplasia timing. This study presents the advantages of μCT data of canines and lateral incisors for (1) detecting cracks along the enamel‐dentine junction (EDJ) which could cause damage when casting, and (2) reliably and non‐destructively reconstructing worn or broken cusps. Fragile teeth of Homo naledi, Miocene, and Pleistocene specimens were μCT‐scanned: 2D virtual sections and 3D models allowed for inspecting crack pattern beyond the external surface and 2D virtual sections were used to digitally reconstruct cusp tips (only Homo naledi). Micro‐CT scans allowed cracks running along the EDJ and communicating with radial cracks in the enamel to be identified prior to casting. Cusp reconstructions using μCT data were conducted as precisely as when using thin‐sections or photographs, and with high intra‐ and inter‐observer agreement, while preserving the original specimen and affording numerous planes of virtual section. When available, μCT data should be inspected prior to tooth casting to exclude teeth that show a pattern of cracks that could lead to damage. Virtual sections allow for accessible, reliable, and non‐destructive cusp reconstructions that may be used for developmental (e.g., perikymata and enamel hypoplasia) or enamel thickness studies. Anat Rec, 302:1516–1535, 2019. © 2018 American Association for Anatomy
Strategies toward rheumatoid arthritis therapy; the old and the new

Currently, medications used to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are glucocorticoids (GCs) and nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), predominantly used for controlling the pain and inflammation, disease‐modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), administered as first‐line medication for newly diagnosed RA cases, and biological therapies, used to target and inhibit specific molecules of the immune and inflammatory responses. NSAIDs and other GCs are effective in alleviating the pain, inflammation, and stiffness due to RA. DMARDs that are used for RA therapy are hydroxychloroquine, methotrexate, leflunomide, and sulfasalazine. The biological therapies, on the contrary, are chimeric anti‐CD20 monoclonal antibody, rituximab, inhibitors of tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) like etanercept, infliximab, and adalimumab, a recombinant inhibitor of interleukin‐1 (IL‐1), anakinra, and costimulation blocker, abatacept. Moreover, newly under evaluation biological therapies include new TNF‐α inhibitors, JAK inhibitors, anti‐interleukin‐6‐receptor monoclonal antibodies (mABs), and antibodies against vital molecules involved in the survival and development of functional B cells. The new strategies to treat RA has improved the course of the disease and most of the patients are successful in remission of the clinical manifestations if the diagnosis of the disease occur early. The probability of remission increase if the diagnosis happens rapidly and treat‐to‐target approach are implemented. In this review article, we have attempted to go through the treatment strategies for RA therapy both the routine ones and those which have been developed over the past few years and currently under investigation.
Health insurance literacy and health service utilization among college students

Abstract Objective: Health literacy and health insurance literacy affect healthcare utilization. The purpose of this study was to determine the relation between health insurance knowledge, self-efficacy, and student healthcare utilization in the past year. Participants: A random sample of 1,450 respondents, over the age of 18, attending a public university in the southeastern United States completed a survey in March 2017. Methods: A model was constructed to test the effect of health insurance self-efficacy on the relation between knowledge and healthcare utilization in the past year. Results: Health insurance knowledge (M = 5.8, range 0–10) and self-efficacy (M = 2.48, range 1–4) were low. Self-efficacy was a significant moderator when explaining healthcare utilization in the past year. Conclusions: College students have low knowledge and self-efficacy regarding health insurance. These findings can be used for developing policies and self-efficacy-based health education programs that may increase student healthcare utilization.
A High-Lignin-Content, Removable, and Glycol-Assisted Repairable Coating Based on Dynamic Covalent Bonds.

Conventional thermoset coatings cannot be easily repaired and removed owing to their highly crosslinked structure. The investigation of repairable or removable coatings has been receiving extensive attention, but few reported coatings possess both features. In this work, a repairable and removable coating was developed through the curing of a modified Kraft lignin (L-COOH) with poly(ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether (PEG-epoxy) in the presence of zinc catalyst. The L-COOH was prepared by functionalization of Kraft lignin with carboxylic acid groups. The cured material had a high lignin content (>47 wt %). At elevated temperatures (>140 °C), dynamic transesterification in the cured network was activated, which resulted in fast stress relaxation and imparted excellent repairability. If the vitrimer system was used as a coating for tin plates, it provided adequate hardness and adhesion properties. In addition, the lignin-PEG coating could be easily removed from the tin plate by using a mild (0.01-0.1 m) NaOH aqueous solution owing to the unique swelling ability of the coating in alkaline aqueous solution. With the assistance of ethylene glycol, this coating could achieve stress-free repairability in 15 min. This work demonstrates the first lignin-based repair- and removable epoxy coating based on vitrimer chemistry.