Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of Topical Glycolic Acid Plus a Lovastatin-Cholesterol Combination Cream for the Treatment of Autosomal Recessive Congenital Ichthyoses

Importance Autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis (ARCI) is a heterogeneous group of disorders caused by defects in signaling pathways involved in epidermal proliferation and differentiation, leading to a wide range of skin manifestations. Therapeutic options are limited and often unsatisfactory. Topical cholesterol and statin as a combined formulation has proven successful in the treatment of patients with CHILD syndrome (congenital hemidysplasia ichthyosis and limb defects). Objective To assess change in disease severity score after a 3-month therapeutic regimen consisting of a glycolic acid, 10% to 20%, cream and a combination cream of lovastatin, 2%, with cholesterol, 2%, in the treatment of ARCI. Design, Setting, and Participants This case series of 15 patients with ARCI was conducted at the American University of Beirut, a referral center in the Middle East region for genodermatoses, between May 2017 and January 2018. No age groups were excluded; all patients were from the Middle East area; and all were initially not responsive to treatment with hydrating creams in combination with urea creams, 30% to 40%, or glycolic acid, 10% to 20%. Excluded were patients who had been taking systemic retinoids within 3 months before the start of the study. Interventions A 3-month therapeutic regimen of glycolic acid, 10% to 20%, cream and a combination of lovastatin, 2%, with cholesterol, 2%, cream. Main Outcomes and Measures Percentage change in disease severity scores following 2 and 3 months of study treatment. Results Of the 15 patients included in the study, 10 were male (mean age, 11.2 years; age range, 2-38 years). The average percentage reduction in the disease severity score was 33.7% at 2 months (from 60.8 to 40.2) and 57.5% at 3 months (from 60.8 to 21.9). Adverse effects were mild and consisted mainly of irritation and burning. Conclusions and Relevance These findings suggest a benefit from a treatment regimen consisting of glycolic acid, 10% to 20%, and a combination of lovastatin, 2%, with cholesterol, 2%, in the treatment of ARCI. This combination of creams might also prove to be beneficial in other types of ichthyoses and other dermatological diseases with a defective skin barrier.
Images Based Classification for Warm Cloud Rainmaking using Convolutional Neural Networks

This paper is an experiment conducted on deep learning technique, which is currently popular and efficient in the field of image classification. The Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) has been achieved in many tasks of image classification and used to classify cloud images for meteorology task. The CNNs can be applied to classify rainmaking cloud images. There are three steps of warm clouds: fattening, attacking, and enhancing. The challenge in this work is the images required for classification are very similar. That means the sampling images are the images of cloud in the same type but difference at the formation stage, while the image shooting format and equipment is not fixed. The images are taken with varying degrees of angle, height, lightness and resolution. From the experimental results, it was found that CNNs had prominent characteristics for learning to extract the necessary attributes used in solving problem along with self-classification, leading to the developed model had higher accurate classification than traditional method around 5–8%.
Diversity in Fashion Recommendation Using Semantic Parsing

Developing recommendation system for fashion images is challenging due to the inherent ambiguity associated with what criterion a user is looking at. Suggesting multiple images where each output image is similar to the query image on the basis of a different feature or part is one way to mitigate the problem. Existing works for fashion recommendation have used Siamese or Triplet network to learn features between a similar pair and a similar-dissimilar triplet respectively. However, these methods do not provide basic information such as, how two clothing images are similar, or which parts present in the two images make them similar. In this paper, we propose to recommend images by explicitly learning and exploiting part based similarity. We propose a novel approach of learning discriminative features from weakly-supervised data by using visual attention over the parts and a texture encoding network. We show that the learned features surpass the state-of-the-art in retrieval task on DeepFashion dataset. We then use the proposed model to recommend fashion images having an explicit variation with respect to similarity of any of the parts.
Field and laboratory findings following the large-scale use of intermediate type infectious bursal disease vaccines in Denmark

ABSTRACT Following a period of clinical outbreaks of very virulent infectious bursal disease virus (vvIBDV) in Denmark, the histological bursal lesion score (HBLS) was used on a national scale to screen broiler flocks vaccinated with intermediate IBD vaccines for lesions indicative of IBDV challenge. High lesion scores were detected in a high percentage of healthy and well performing flocks despite the lack of other indications of the presence of vvIBDV. RT–PCR and subsequent sequencing showed the frequent presence of H253Q and H253N IBDV strains that were genetically close to the sequence of the intermediate vaccines with a relative risk ratio of 13.0 (P < 0.0001) in intermediate vaccine A or B vaccinated flocks compared to unvaccinated flocks. The relevance of these H253Q and H253N strains was tested under experimental conditions using a protocol derived from the European Pharmacopoeia for safety of live IBD vaccines. The results confirmed the higher pathogenicity for the bursa of these strains compared to intermediate vaccines as well as the negative effect on antibody response to a Newcastle disease (ND) vaccination performed at the peak of the bursa damage. The efficacy of the ND vaccination was still 100% showing that the H253N and H253Q IBDV strains would be considered as safe vaccine viruses. In conclusion, the use of the HBLS to screen commercial broiler flocks vaccinated with intermediate IBD vaccines for the presence of vvIBDV does not seem to be a reliable method due to the frequent occurrence of H253N and H253Q strains in those flocks. For screening of IBD vaccinated flocks for the presence of vvIBDV or other field strains, the RT–PCR with subsequent sequencing seems to be most suitable.
Acute presentation of Sinding-Larsen-Johansson disease simulating patella sleeve fracture: A case report

Objectives: Diagnosis of Sinding-Larsen-Johansson disease may not be an easy task. Several sport-related conditions affect the distal pole of the patella in the adolescent, and treatment varies considerably. The article describes a patient that had radiographic features of Sinding-Larsen-Johansson disease associated with an atypical acute presentation. Methods: Case report and literature review. Results: A 10-year-old boy presented with a sudden pain after a noncontact soccer injury. He had tenderness and swelling over the patella. Radiographs showed minimally displaced distal patellar ossicle. Magnetic resonance imaging excluded sleeve cartilaginous injury and documented Sinding-Larsen-Johansson disease. The knee was immobilized briefly. There was complete healing of the injury in 4-week follow-up radiographs. Conclusion: Emergency physicians, radiologists, and orthopedic surgeons should be aware of the acute presentation of Sinding-Larsen-Johansson disease after knee injuries.
Thermal Profile Detection Through High-Sensitivity Fiber Optic Chirped Bragg Grating on Microstructured PMMA Fiber

In this paper, a linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG) inscribed in a microstructured polymer optical fiber (mPOF) has been demonstrated for detecting temperature profiles during thermal treatments. A CFBG of 10-mm length and 0.98-nm bandwidth has been inscribed in an mPOF fiber by means of a KrF laser and uniform phase mask. The CFBG has a high temperature sensitivity of −191.4 pm/$^{\circ }$ C. The CFBG has been used as a semidistributed temperature sensor, capable of detecting the temperature profile along the grating length, for scenarios that account minimally invasive biomedical treatments. Two experiments have been designed to validate the CFBG temperature reconstruction, using a linear gradient, and a research-grade radiofrequency ablation setup to apply Gaussian-shaped temperature spatial profiles. The result is that the higher sensitivity of the CFBG supports the detection of spatially nonuniform temperature fields by means of spectral reconstruction.
WHO World Mental Health Surveys International College Student Project: Prevalence and Distribution of Mental Disorders

Increasingly, colleges across the world are contending with rising rates of mental disorders, and in many cases, the demand for services on campus far exceeds the available resources. The present study reports initial results from the first stage of the WHO World Mental Health International College Student project, in which a series of surveys in 19 colleges across 8 countries (Australia, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Spain, United States) were carried out with the aim of estimating prevalence and basic sociodemographic correlates of common mental disorders among first-year college students. Web-based self-report questionnaires administered to incoming first-year students (45.5% pooled response rate) screened for six common lifetime and 12-month DSM–IV mental disorders: major depression, mania/hypomania, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, alcohol use disorder, and substance use disorder. We focus on the 13,984 respondents who were full-time students: 35% of whom screened positive for at least one of the common lifetime disorders assessed and 31% screened positive for at least one 12-month disorder. Syndromes typically had onsets in early to middle adolescence and persisted into the year of the survey. Although relatively modest, the strongest correlates of screening positive were older age, female sex, unmarried-deceased parents, no religious affiliation, nonheterosexual identification and behavior, low secondary school ranking, and extrinsic motivation for college enrollment. The weakness of these associations means that the syndromes considered are widely distributed with respect to these variables in the student population. Although the extent to which cost-effective treatment would reduce these risks is unclear, the high level of need for mental health services implied by these results represents a major challenge to institutions of higher education and governments.
Attitudes of Non-Asthmatic Children Towards Their Asthmatic Peers: Influence of interactions with asthmatic relatives and peers.

Objectives This study aimed to examine non-asthmatic children's acceptance of and attitudes towards their asthmatic peers in Jordan. Methods This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted between September 2015 and January 2016 among 1,812 non-asthmatic children aged 9-13 years old at 10 schools in Zarqa, Jordan. Arabic versions of the Peers Attitude Towards Children with Asthma scale and the Asthma Knowledge Test for Children were used to assess attitudes towards children with asthma and asthma-related knowledge, respectively. Results A total of 1,586 children participated in the study (response rate: 87.5%). Of these, 158 (10%) and 399 (25.2%) children reported a family history of asthma or knew at least one person with asthma, respectively. Although 50.3% stated that they would sit next to such children in the classroom, only 34.9% reported that they would be friends with an asthmatic child. However, 73.1% of the non-asthmatic children believed that asthmatic children were not pretending to be ill and 61.4% believed that such children were not ill due to their own carelessness. Female non-asthmatic children (P <0.001), those with a family history of asthma (P = 0.004) and those who knew other individuals with asthma (P <0.001) had significantly more positive attitudes towards and acceptance of their asthmatic peers. In addition, age was significantly related to attitude scores (P <0.001). However, there was no correlation between asthma-related knowledge and the children's attitudes towards peers with asthma (P = 0.611). Conclusion Previous interactions with asthmatic family members or peers were found to significantly influence non-asthmatic children's attitudes towards their asthmatic peers.
Clinically Deployed Distributed Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reconstruction: Application to Pediatric Knee Imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging is capable of producing volumetric images without ionizing radiation. Nonetheless, long acquisitions lead to prohibitively long exams. Compressed sensing (CS) can enable faster scanning via sub-sampling with reduced artifacts. However, CS requires significantly higher reconstruction computation, limiting current clinical applications to 2D/3D or limited-resolution dynamic imaging. Here we analyze the practical limitations to T2 Shuffling, a four-dimensional CS-based acquisition, which provides sharp 3D-isotropic-resolution and multi-contrast images in a single scan. Our improvements to the pipeline on a single machine provide a 3x overall reconstruction speedup, which allowed us to add algorithmic changes improving image quality. Using four machines, we achieved additional 2.1x improvement through distributed parallelization. Our solution reduced the reconstruction time in the hospital to 90 seconds on a 4-node cluster, enabling its use clinically. To understand the implications of scaling this application, we simulated running our reconstructions with a multiple scanner setup typical in hospitals.
PrIoT: Prototyping the Internet of Things

In the context of fast growing Internet of Things (IoT), devices, applications and communication protocols-het-erogeneity poses serious problems for interoperability control and also for harmonized IoT development tools over a pletora of heterogeneous hardware provided by different manufacturers. In this paper we describe the IoT device heterogeneity control research problem, and describe the most relevant work related to IoT device operating systems, platforms, frameworks and APIs approaches. Then we propose our easy and fast IoT prototyping framework named PrIoT with our first scenario and use cases to show the benefit of our approach. The paper describes the main components of PrIoT framework that aims to leverage IoT adoption and usage from design to deployment and better handle the heterogeneity property of the IoT device, services and applications. The main design philosophy behind our PrIoT framework is "code once port anywhere".
Distributed Matrix Multiplication Performance Estimator for Machine Learning Jobs in Cloud Computing

Matrix multiplication is an important kernel task in many machine learning algorithms. As the size of input datasets increases, multiple workloads are analyzed in large-scale distributed cloud computing environments. Therefore, understanding the characteristics of a distributed matrix multiplication task is essential for running machine learning jobs in the cloud. Herein, we propose Matrix multiplication Performance Estimator for Cloud computing, a method to predict the latency of matrix multiplication of various sizes and shapes in a distributed cloud computing environment. We first characterize the overhead of a distributed matrix multiplication task and propose features to model the latency of a task with different input types. Using the proposed features, a latency prediction model is developed by applying a data mining algorithm and a parameter optimization step iteratively. In experiments with 236 distinct types of matrix multiplications on diverse cloud instances running Apache Spark, we confirm that the proposed method can model the latency of various types of matrix multiplication tasks effectively and capture the non-linear interactions among the proposed features. A comparison with the state-of-the-art cloud computing performance predictor, Ernest, reveals that the proposed method provides 63% lower Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) for a distributed matrix multiplication latency prediction task and confirms the uniqueness of the distributed matrix multiplication workload.
A Watermark-Based Scheme for Authenticating JPEG Image Integrity

JPEG is the most common image format in smartphones, computers, or digital cameras. Because numerous JPEG images are easily shared and distributed, there are privacy and security concerns for these images. Hence, the JPEG committee has started a standardization called JPEG privacy and security to resolve these issues. The forgery detection of a JPEG image is the key objective of JPEG privacy and security. In this paper, we propose a novel forgery detection method that is watermark-based, for authenticating JPEG image integrity in the discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain. The proposed method aims at 100% detection accuracy for typical forgeries on JPEG image DCT blocks and to counter a well-known forgery attack called collage attack. For this purpose, the method splits the host image into a group of blocks (GOB). A watermark is generated by collaborating with the neighboring GOBs and is embedded into the GOBs. The experimental results using various sample images show the superiority of the proposed method, exhibiting a negligible visual difference between the original and watermarked JPEG images.
A Resonant Substrate Integrated Waveguide Measurement System for True Relative Permittivity Extraction of PCB Materials up to 90 GHz

This paper presents a resonant measurement method based on substrate integrated waveguide cavities for determination of the true relative permittivity of a PCB material. The sensor is manufactured on the unknown PCB material and in contrast to existing, comparable methods, the extraction process takes into account the metal roughness. The proposed method does not require any reference materials or sensors on different PCB thicknesses. This paper contains considerations regarding the design and simulation as well as measurement results of the sensor system. To validate the measurement system, the extracted relative permittivity values of the RO4350B substrate over the frequency range of 10GHz to 90GHz are presented.
The Effectiveness of Cost Reduction with Charge Displays on Test Ordering under the Health Insurance System in Japan: A Study Using Paper-based Simulated Cases for Residents and Clinical Fellows

Objective To determine whether or not displaying the cost of tests can help reduce charges on test ordering in Japan. Methods This study was conducted under the setting of a simulated first visit of an outpatient for general internal medicine in a secondary medical institution in Japan. We randomly assigned 27 residents and clinical fellows to Team A or B. The first half, without charges displayed on the ordering system, was designated the “non-display group,” and the participants of Team A selected tests for each paper-based simulated case (Q1-Q14), while the participants of Team B selected tests for Q15-Q28. The second half, which had charges displayed, was designated the “display group,” and the participants of Team A selected tests for Q15-Q28, while the participants of Team B selected tests for Q1-Q14. The main outcome measure was the difference in the cost of tests per paper-based simulated case between the non-display and display groups. Results The median (interquartile range) cost of tests per paper-based simulated case was 12,255 yen (5,040-23,695 yen) in the non-display group versus 9,425 yen (2,320-21,700 yen) in the display group, showing a decrease of 2,830 yen with charges being displayed (p=0.002). Conclusion Displaying the charges when ordering tests in paper-based simulated cases resulted in cost reduction. The adoption of this intervention may reduce health insurance costs under the health insurance system in Japan, which has features such as universal health coverage and universal access to care.
Colorectal cancer after negative colonoscopy in fecal immunochemical test-positive participants from a colorectal cancer screening program

Abstract Background and study aims Colorectal cancer (CRC) risk after a positive fecal immunochemical test (FIT) and negative colonoscopy is unknown. We aimed to ascertain the cumulative incidence of post-colonoscopy colorectal cancer (PCCRC) and the manifestation of other lesions that could explain the test positivity in individuals with a negative colonoscopy in a population screening program. Patients and method Observational study in participants from the first round of a CRC screening program (2010 – 2012) with positive-FIT (≥ 20 μg/g of feces) and negative colonoscopy (without neoplasia). A 42- to 76-month follow-up was performed searching in the National Health Service database and by a brief structured telephonic interview. Results Of 2659 FIT-positive individuals who underwent colonoscopy, 811 (30.5 %) had a negative colonoscopy. Three PCCRC (0.4 %) were detected within 11 – 28 months and accelerated carcinogenesis was ruled out. Among those with normal colonoscopy, 32 (5 %) relevant lesions were detected at follow-up. One-third of them (11/32) were significant neoplasias: a gastric cancer, a small-bowel lymphoma, six advanced colorectal adenomas, and the three PCCRC. The 21 remaining lesions were inflammatory, vascular disorders, or non-advanced colorectal adenomas. Conclusions The vast majority (95 %) of individuals did not present any subsequent lesion that could explain the FIT positivity. The very low incidence (0.4 %) and characteristics of PCCRC observed in our cohort reinforce the concept that, although a positive FIT preselects high risk individuals, a high quality colonoscopy is the paramount factor in preventing PCCRC. Improving quality standards of colonoscopy are required to strengthen the current CRC screening strategies.
Collaborative Planning of DERs and Intentional Islands in Distribution Network Considering Loss-of-Load Risk

With the increasing use of distributed generations and distribution automation technologies in smart grid, the distribution system operator can alleviate the loss-of-load and improve the reliability of supply by forming intentional islands when emergency situations occur. Considering that the successful operation of the intentional island needs allocation of new circuit breakers (CBs), this paper proposes an integrated optimization method for simultaneous allocation of CBs and distributed energy resources (PV and battery energy storage, DERs) in distribution networks. The proposed approach is established on a multi-objective optimization framework, which determines the positions and sizes of CBs and DERs in order to minimize the total cost and the outage risk of the system, while subject to the voltage stability constraint. As distinct from the previous works, the loss-of-load risk and the effects of the intentional islands on system reliability are especially considered in our paper. To achieve this, an efficient technique to calculate the system risk index that converges with limited computation efforts is developed. The proposed model is solved by using the multi-objective evolutionary optimization algorithm—NSGA-II. Simulations based on RBTS-BUS6 verify the effectiveness of the proposed model and methods. Furthermore, the impacts of CB positions and load characteristics on the planning results are also analyzed.