Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vitamin D Supplementation Associated with Acute Respiratory Infection in Exclusively Breastfed Infants (P11-071-19).

Objectives To investigate the effect of routine oral vitamin D supplementation on acute respiratory infection in exclusively breastfed infants. Methods A retrospective analysis from a multi-center population-based prospective cohort study (TMCHC) in Wuhan, China. We retrospectively analyzed the data on ARI and ARI-related hospitalization experience and the vitamin D supplementation history among the exclusively breastfed infants by 6 months of age, from the TMCHC study. We set the first ARI by 6 months of age as the outcome endpoint, and assessed the infants vitamin D supplementation from birth to the outcome endpoint with or without supplementation and supplementation frequencies (≤ 2 days/week, 3-4 days/week, 5-6 days/week, > 6 days/week). Results Among 983 exclusively breastfed infants, 433 (44%) had an ARI and 55 (6%) experienced ARI-related hospitalization. Infants with vitamin D supplementation experienced a lower cumulative incidence of ARI than those without by 6 months of age (P < 0.001). Vitamin D supplementation was significantly associated with a decreased risk of ARI (OR = 0.19, 95%CI: 0.13-0.30) and ARI-related hospitalization (OR = 0.17, 95%CI: 0.09-0.30) after adjustment for all confounding factors. Additionally, this association represented a dose-response relationship (P for trend < 0.001). Conclusions Vitamin D supplementation was associated with a reduced risk of ARI and ARI-related hospitalization among exclusively breastfed infants by 6 months of age, suggesting that vitamin D supplementation is a promising strategy for acute respiratory infection prevention at early childhood. Funding Sources This study is supported by National Program on Basic Research Project of China (NO.2013FY114200), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NO. HUST2016YXZD040), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 81573149). Supporting Tables Images and/or Graphs
Environment-to-phenotype mapping and adaptation strategies in varying environments

Significance A fundamental difference between living and nonliving systems is that organisms can evolve responsive adaptation to external conditions. We present a theoretical framework, which unifies different adaptation strategies encountered in biology. Central to our approach is the introduction of an environment-to-phenotype mapping describing how organisms’ traits or behavior depend on the environment. In contrast to commonly considered genotype-to-phenotype mapping, our approach emphasizes an evolutionary rather than mechanistic understanding of organisms. Our phenomenological model, inspired by artificial neural networks, also allows us to study the importance of the dimensionality of internal representations for the adaptation strategies. Biological organisms exhibit diverse strategies for adapting to varying environments. For example, a population of organisms may express the same phenotype in all environments (“unvarying strategy”) or follow environmental cues and express alternative phenotypes to match the environment (“tracking strategy”), or diversify into coexisting phenotypes to cope with environmental uncertainty (“bet-hedging strategy”). We introduce a general framework for studying how organisms respond to environmental variations, which models an adaptation strategy by an abstract mapping from environmental cues to phenotypic traits. Depending on the accuracy of environmental cues and the strength of natural selection, we find different adaptation strategies represented by mappings that maximize the long-term growth rate of a population. The previously studied strategies emerge as special cases of our model: The tracking strategy is favorable when environmental cues are accurate, whereas when cues are noisy, organisms can either use an unvarying strategy or, remarkably, use the uninformative cue as a source of randomness to bet hedge. Our model of the environment-to-phenotype mapping is based on a network with hidden units; the performance of the strategies is shown to rely on having a high-dimensional internal representation, which can even be random.
New pharmacotherapies for genetic neuromuscular disorders: opportunities and challenges

ABSTRACT Introduction: Genetic neuromuscular diseases (NMDs) constitute a heterogeneous group of rare conditions, including some of the most disabling conditions in childhood. Recently, advanced technologies have greatly expanded preclinical and clinical research, and specific therapies have been developed. Area covered: We provide an overview of novel pharmacological approaches to the main NMDs, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), spina muscular atrophy (SMA), X-linked myotubular myopathy, Pompe disease (PD), and myotonic dystrophy type 1, with attention to both achievements and unresolved therapeutic challenges. We conducted a selected review of relevant publications in the last five years identified through PubMed and Scopus. Additional information was derived from the website of clinicaltrials.gov and from the authors’ direct knowledge of research activities. Expert Opinion: For the first time, targeted therapies have received conditional regulatory approval and have been introduced into clinical care: enzyme replacement therapy for PD, gene expression modulation for DMD and SMA, and gene therapy for SMA. Though not curative, these treatments can improve functioning and increase survival. Issues still to be addressed include: early recognition, definition of new emerging phenotypes, development of more sensitive outcome measures, long-term risk-benefit estimates, high costs sustainability, and criteria for therapy initiation and discontinuation.
Sign Language Interpreter

The world’s population now stands at 7.6 billion. Out of these, millions of people are not blessed with the ability to hear or/and speak. Although speech becomes a barrier between these people and other abled persons but, there are three types of sign languages which help to decrease this gap. There are about 250 types of sign language interpreters which translate their language for other people. This paper describes a similar type of device aimed to facilitate a bridge between the two groups of population. It develops a wearable device having motion detecting sensors to sense the orientation and direction of fingers in order to recognize the gesture made by the user. Also, it transmits the gesture to a wireless display unit through a Bluetooth module which displays the corresponding word to the gesture made on an LCD. Thus, in this way, sign-to-text conversion is carried out. The heart of the device is Atmega328 with flash memory of 32k bytes enabling us to store a wide range of words. The designed system was capable to recognize the pre-stored gestures according to ASL (American Sign Language). Prototype was designed for one hand and it was tested on a few gestures.
Inclusion of a molecular marker of bladder cancer in a clinical pathway for investigation of haematuria may reduce the need for cystoscopy.

AIM To examine prospectively the impact of adding a urinary biomarker of bladder cancer (Cxbladder TriageTM, CxbT) to a clinical pathway for investigating haematuria. METHODS The clinical outcome of 571 patients with haematuria who presented to their general practitioner was reviewed. Outcome measurements included the findings of laboratory tests, imaging, cystoscopies, histology and specialist assessments. The data were used to model a theoretical clinical pathway that involved initial screening using CxbT in combination with imaging, and only test positive patients being referred for specialist assessment and cystoscopy. RESULTS All patients underwent cystoscopy and 44 transitional cell carcinomas were diagnosed in the study cohort, with two low-risk cancers missed by CxbT, one of which was also not detected by imaging. When combined, imaging and CxbT had a sensitivity of 97.7% and negative predictive value of 99.8%. CONCLUSIONS In our series, all significant bladder cancers were diagnosed by imaging and CxbT before cystoscopy was undertaken. The high negative predictive value of this clinical pathway would allow approximately one-third of patients with haematuria to be managed without cystoscopy.
SOFTWARE RELIABILITY GROWTH MODELLING FOR ERRORS OF DIFFERENT SEVERITY USING CHANGE POINT

During the last two decades many researchers have analyzed the reliability growth of software during the testing and operational phases and proposed the mathematical models to estimate and predict the reliability measures. During the software testing on the detection of a failure the fault that has caused the failure is isolated and removed. Most of the existing research in this area considers that similar testing efforts and strategy are required on each debugging effort. However this may not be true in practice. Different faults may require different amount of testing efforts and testing strategy for their removal. In software reliability modeling in order to incorporate this phenomenon faults are classified into different categories as simple, hard and/or complex faults. This categorization is also extended to n-types of faults. Some of the existing research incorporates this phenomenon considering that the fault removal rate is different for different types of faults and remains constant during the overall period of testing. However this assumption may not apply in general testing environment in practice. It is a common observation that as the testing progresses the fault detection and/or removal rate changes. This change can be due to a number of reasons. The changing testing environment, testing strategy, skill, motivation and constitution of the testing and debugging personnel etc. are some of the major reasons behind this change. In this paper we have formulated the model for the software system developed for safety critical application under a specific testing environment. The model is validated on real life data sets.
A MODEL OF ACADEMIC GUIDANCE IN UNIVERSITY

Abstrak: Model Bimbingan Belajar di Perguruan Tinggi. Tulisan ini merupakan hasil penelitian membahas pentingnya bimbingan belajar karena beberapa alasan yang bersifat internal dan eksternal untuk menunjang kesuksesan belajar dan menyongsong masa depan bagi mahasiswa. Penelitian ini bertujuan menghasilkan model bimbingan belajar untuk meningkatkan keterampilan berpikir dan kemandirian dalam belajar dengan menggunakan pendekatan Research and Development (R&D) melalui empat tahapan: studi pendahuluan, merancang draf model, memvalidasi draf model, dan menguji model di lapangan. Metode penelitian menggunakan kuasi eksperimen dengan desain The pretest and posttest non-equivalent control group design . Hasil penelitian menyimpulkan, model bimbingan yang telah diuji di lapangan terbukti secara meyakinkan dapat meningkatkan keterampilan berpikir kritis dan kreatif serta kemandirian, baik aspek pengetahuan, keterampilan, maupun sikap dalam belajar. Kata kunci: Bimbingan akademik, keterampilan berpikir, kemandirian belajar.
Short-term succession of marine microbial fouling communities and the identification of primary and secondary colonizers

Abstract Microbial succession during the initial stages of marine biofouling has been rarely studied, especially in the Arabian Gulf. This study was undertaken to follow temporal shifts in biofouling communities in order to identify primary and secondary colonizers. Quantitative analysis revealed a significant increase in total biomass, coverage of macrofoulers, chlorophyll a concentrations, and bacterial counts with time. The relative abundance of the adnate diatoms increased with time, whereas it decreased in the case of the plocon diatoms. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination based on MiSeq data placed the bacterial communities in three distinct clusters, depending on the time of sampling. While the relative abundance of Alphaproteobacteria and Flavobacteriia decreased with time, suggesting their role as primary colonizers, the relative abundance of Actinobacteria and Planctomycetia increased with time, suggesting their role as secondary colonizers. Biofouling is a dynamic process that involves temporal quantitative and qualitative shifts in the micro- and macrofouling communities.
Performance evaluations for the design of the effective voice and data coexisted networks

This paper presents results of QoS performance and QoS performance evaluation of the computer network using VoIP under a voice and data coexisted environment. We simulate two cases, first without QoS and second with QoS; for each case we get a result on the delay and CPU usage. We use several parameters including system operation rate, network protocol, network structure, CPU processing rate, inter-system delay, and the number of buffer failures. The network consists of fast Ethernet. As a result, the CPU processing rates are below 15%. The average inter-system delay is 0.7 ms. In the fast Ethernet network, the average is satisfactory,.
One-Step Autologous Minced Cartilage Procedure for the Treatment of Knee Joint Chondral and Osteochondral Lesions: A Series of 27 Patients With 2-Year Follow-up

Background: Chondral and osteochondral lesions are being detected with increasing frequency. For large-diameter lesions, cell-based treatment modalities are speculated to result in the best possible outcome. Purpose: To prospectively evaluate the 2-year clinical and radiological results after the treatment of chondral and osteochondral knee joint lesions by a single-step autologous minced cartilage procedure. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: From February 2015 to June 2016, a total of 27 consecutive patients suffering from chondral or osteochondral lesions of the knee joint were treated using a single-step autologous minced cartilage procedure. All patients underwent preoperative and postoperative magnetic resonance imaging for the collection of AMADEUS (Area Measurement and Depth and Underlying Structures) and MOCART (magnetic resonance observation of cartilage repair tissue) scores. Clinical analysis was conducted by a numeric analog scale (NAS) for pain and knee function before the intervention and at 12 and 24 months postoperatively. Results: A total of 12 female and 15 male patients (mean age, 28.7 years) were evaluated for a mean of 28.2 ± 3.8 months. The mean cartilage defect size encountered intraoperatively was 3.1 ± 1.6 cm2. There was a significant decrease in pain from 7.2 ± 1.9 preoperatively to 1.8 ± 1.6 (P < .001) at 2-year follow-up. Knee function improved from a mean of 7.2 ± 2.0 preoperatively to 2.1 ± 2.3 (P < .001) at 2 years after surgery. The mean preoperative AMADEUS score was 57.4 ± 21.4. Postoperatively, the mean MOCART score was 40.6 ± 21.1 at 6-month follow-up. No correlation was observed between the clinical data and the MOCART or AMADEUS scores. Conclusion: Overall, the findings of this study demonstrated that patients undergoing a single-step autologous minced cartilage procedure had a satisfactory outcome at 2-year follow-up. As a result, the single-step autologous minced cartilage procedure does represent a possible alternative to standard autologous chondrocyte implantation. Longer follow-up and larger cohorts are required to define the benefits of this procedure.
Diagnostic performance of the endoscopic pressure study integrated system (EPSIS): a novel diagnostic tool for gastroesophageal reflux disease

Abstract Background The endoscopic pressure study integrated system (EPSIS) is a prototypic system for monitoring intragastric pressure (IGP) fluctuations that result from opening of the cardia during gastric distension. The performance of EPSIS for the diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) was evaluated. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted of data prospectively collected over a 2-year period from 59 patients who underwent gastroscopy, EPSIS, and 24-hour pH monitoring. Using a dedicated electronic device and a through-the-scope catheter, maximum IGP (IGPmax) and IGP waveform pattern (uphill/flat) were recorded. Results The optimal IGPmax cutoff was 18.7 mmHg. IGPmax < 18.7 mmHg (sensitivity 74.2 %, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 56.8 – 86.3; specificity 57.1 %, 95 %CI 39.1 – 73.5) and flat pattern (sensitivity 71.0 %, 95 %CI 53.4 – 83.9; specificity 82.1 %, 95 %CI 64.4 – 92.1) were associated with GERD. “Double” EPSIS positivity (IGPmax < 18.7 mmHg and flat pattern) provided maximum specificity (85.7 %, 95 %CI 68.5 – 94.3), whereas “any” EPSIS positivity (IGPmax < 18.7 mmHg or flat pattern) provided maximum sensitivity (80.6 %, 95 %CI 63.7 – 90.8). Maximum specificity and sensitivity for nonerosive reflux disease (NERD) was > 70 %. In multivariate analysis, “double” EPSIS positivity was the strongest predictor of GERD (odds ratio [OR] 16.05, 95 %CI 3.23 – 79.7) and NERD (OR 14.7, 95 %CI 2.37 – 90.8). Conclusion EPSIS emerges as a reliable adjunct to routine gastroscopy for GERD diagnosis, and might prove helpful for the stratification and management of patients with reflux disorders.
Latent profile analysis of anxiety disorder among left-behind children in rural Southern China: a cross-sectional study

Objectives Previous studies have used latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine rural left-behind children’s anxiety. Further study is needed to identify the heterogeneous characteristics of rural left-behind children’s anxiety and explore the related factors. Setting A cross-sectional survey using a school-based sample was conducted in January 2018 in Qingxin district, Qingyuan city, Guangdong province. Participants 1026 left-behind children (effective response rate of the questionnaire: 95.39%). Main outcome measures Profile latent classes (LC) and anxiety disorder. Results The LPA identified three anxiety LC: ‘low anxiety’ (56.6%), ‘medium anxiety’ (34.8%) and ‘severe anxiety’ (8.6%). The multinomial logistic regression model was used to predict the relationship between personal, family, school factors and anxiety. We found that the variables directly related to lower anxiety classes included age (12–14 years), harmonious or fair relationship with classmates, no neglect, harmonious parental relationship and the duration of mother migration <6 months. Conclusions These findings suggested the need for careful consideration of differences in anxieties among rural left-behind children. Identifying latent subgroups may provide an empirical basis for teachers and public health practitioners to implement anxiety intervention efforts.
Imagery and Classification

Research in cognitive psychology has suggested that images can be represented in tenus of the spatial relationships of their meaningful pans. 'Ibis paper discusses a technique for knowledge representation that captures both the spatial and descriptive features of an image. 'Ibis formal technique can be used to construct a theory for class determination that involves pattern matching a depictive representation of an image with reconstructed images of known classifications.
The Combination of Wheat Peptides and Fucoidan Protects Against Chronic Superficial Gastritis and Regulates Gut Microbiota: A Double-blinded, Placebo-controlled Study (P06-104-19).

Objectives Chronic gastritis is observed in almost half world population. Traditional medications against chronic gastritis might produce adverse effects, so alternative nutritional strategies are needed to prevent the aggravation of gastric mucosal damage. The aim of this study is to evaluate the protective effect of the combination of wheat peptides and fucoidan (WPF) on adults diagnosed with chronic superficial gastritis in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Methods Participants were randomized to receive WPF (N = 53) or placebo (N = 53) once daily for 45 days. The pathological grading of gastric mucosal damage was scored using gastroscopy. The fecal samples were collected for the determination of calprotectin, short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) levels and metagenomics analysis. The questionnaires for self-reported gastrointestinal discomforts, life quality and food frequency were collected throughout the study. Results WPF intervention reduced gastric mucosal damage of subjects (P < 0.001). Significantly less stomach pain (P < 0.001), belching (P = 0.028), bloating (P < 0.001), acid reflux (P < 0.001), loss of appetite (P = 0.021), increased food intake (P = 0.020), and promoted life quality (P = 0.014) were reported in the WPF group. WPF intervention significantly decreased fecal calprotectin level (P = 0.003) while slightly increased fecal SCFAs level (P = 0.092). Mechanistically, we found a shifted microbiota profile post-intervention with significantly increased bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum (P = 0.032), eubacterium siraeum (P = 0.036), bacteroides intestinalis (P = 0.024) and decreased prevotella copri (P = 0.055). Conclusions In conclusion, WPF intervention could be utilized as a nutritional alternative to reverse the progression of chronic gastritis. Furthermore, WPF played an important role in the regulation of gut microbiota and SCFA production, which might benefit the lower gastrointestinal tract. Funding Sources Nutrilite Health Institute funded this research. Supporting Tables Images and/or Graphs
A quadratic programming approach to clock skew scheduling for reduced sensitivity to process parameter variations

This paper considers the problem of determining an optimal clock skew schedule for a synchronous VLSI circuit. A novel formulation of clock skew scheduling as a constrained quadratic programming (QP) problem is introduced. To evaluate the reliability, a quadratic cost function is introduced as the Euclidean distance between a specified ideal schedule and a feasible clock schedule. Unlike previous work, the algorithms presented here can be employed to obtain specified target values of the clock delays/skews within a circuit, such as for example, the clock delays/skews for the I/O registers. An efficient mathematical algorithm is derived for the solution of the QP problem with O(r/sup 3/) run time complexity and O(r/sup 2/) storage complexity, where r is the number of registers in the circuit. The algorithm is implemented as a C++ program and demonstrated on the ISCAS'89 suite of benchmark circuits as well as on a number of industrial circuits. The research described here yields additional insights into the correlation between circuit structure and circuit timing by characterizing the degree to which specific signal paths limit the overall performance and reliability of a circuit. This information is therefore applicable to logic and architectural synthesis.