Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Phacoemulsification on Visual Acuity and Macular Morphology in Patients with Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Background This article discusses the effectiveness of phacoemulsification cataract surgery with intraocular lens implantation in patients with wet age-related macular degeneration in the inactive phase of the disease. Material/Methods Forty-nine patients (50 eyes) aged 78.94±5.54 years, previously treated with intravitreal injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents, were qualified for a prospective, randomized 12-month study. The participants were divided into 2 groups. Group I consisted of 25 patients (25 eyes) who were subjected to phacoemulsification cataract surgery. Group II consisted of 24 patients (25 eyes) who were not subjected to phacoemulsification cataract surgery despite having a lens opacity of grade II or higher according to the Lens Opacities Classification System. Results After 12 months of follow-up, patients in group I gained on average 8.04 letters (p<0.001). Furthermore, 20% of the eyes had a significant improvement in best corrected visual acuity of ≥15 Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy Study Chart letters. Patients in group II lost on average 1.96 letters (p>0.05). No significant differences between central retinal thickness values in either group (p>0.05) were noted. The mean number of intravitreal injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents during the study was 2.64±1.98 in group I and 2.92±2.40 in group II (p>0.05). Conclusions Phacoemulsification performed in eyes with wet age-related macular degeneration during the inactive phase of the disease significantly improves visual acuity. In addition, it does not significantly influence the frequency of intravitreal injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents or disease activity.
Functional metagenomics: a tool to gain knowledge for agronomic and veterinary sciences

ABSTRACT The increased global demand for food production has motivated agroindustries to increase their own levels of production. Scientific efforts have contributed to improving these production systems, aiding to solve problems and establishing novel conceptual views and sustainable alternatives to cope with the increasing demand. Although microorganisms are key players in biological systems and may drive certain desired responses toward food production, little is known about the microbial communities that constitute the microbiomes associated with agricultural and veterinary activities. Understanding the diversity, structure and in situ interactions of microbes, together with how these interactions occur within microbial communities and with respect to their environments (including hosts), constitutes a major challenge with an enormous relevance for agriculture and biotechnology. The emergence of high-throughput sequencing technologies, together with novel and more accessible bioinformatics tools, has allowed researchers to learn more about the functional potential and functional activity of these microbial communities. These tools constitute a relevant approach for understanding the metabolic processes that can occur or are currently occurring in a given system and for implementing novel strategies focused on solving production problems or improving sustainability. Several ‘omics’ sciences and their applications in agriculture are discussed in this review, and the usage of functional metagenomics is proposed to achieve substantial advances for food agroindustries and veterinary sciences.
Knowledge, attitude, and performance of primary healthcare physicians in Aseer Region, Saudi Arabia about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Background: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common psychiatric disorders. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of primary health-care (PHC) physicians on diagnosis and management of ADHD. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study included 340 PHC physicians in Aseer Region, Saudi Arabia. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on personal characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and practice of the diagnosis and management of ADHD. Results: Nearly 47.6% of the PHC physicians were aged <30 years, 60.3% were male, 79.1% were Saudi nationals, and 84.1% had completed MBBS. Only 13.2% had attended continuing medical education courses on ADHD, 63.2% had read about ADHD; Internet was the main source of information (30.7%). Participants' attitude toward ADHD was mainly positive, while 32.1% had poor knowledge and 17.6% had diagnosed ADHD cases in the last year, but 73.3% had referred the diagnosed cases to specialists. Participants' knowledge differed significantly according to their age, gender, and nationality. Conclusions: PHC physicians' knowledge about ADHD was suboptimal, but they had a positive attitude toward their role with regard to ADHD. PHC physicians should focus on the clinical and diagnostic aspects of ADHD. Awareness and interest of undergraduate medical students and newly graduated physicians in ADHD should be raised. The Ministry of Health should encourage attendance at extracurricular courses and workshops.
Roles of endoplasmic reticulum stress and autophagy on H2O2-induced oxidative stress injury in HepG2 cells

Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) can be induced by a variety of physiological and pathological factors including oxidative stress, which triggers the unfolded protein response to deal with ERS. Autophagy has been hypothesized to be a means for tumor cells to increase cell survival under conditions of hypoxia, metabolic stress and even chemotherapy. Although they may function independently from each other, there are also interactions between responses to oxidative stress injury induced by pathologic and pharmacological factors. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of ERS and autophagy on H2O2-induced oxidative stress injury in human HepG2 hepatoblastoma cells. It was demonstrated that exposure of HepG2 cells to H2O2 decreased cell viability and increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels in a dosage-dependent manner. In addition, apoptosis and autophagy rates were elevated and reduced following cell exposure to H2O2 + the ERS inducer Tunicamycin (TM), and to H2O2 + the ERS inhibitor Salubrinal (SAL), compared with the cells treated with H2O2 alone, respectively. Further studies revealed that TM enhanced the expression of ERS-related genes including glucose-regulated protein-78/binding immunoglobulin protein, inositol-requiring kinase-I and activating transcription factor 6 and C/EBP-homologous protein 10, which were attenuated by SAL compared with cells exposed to H2O2 alone. The data from the present study also demonstrated that LC3II/LC3-I and p62, members of autophagy-related genes, were increased and decreased in cells treated with H2O2 + TM compared with cells treated with H2O2, respectively, indicating that autophagy was stimulated by ERS. Furthermore, a reduction in the levels of pro caspase-3 and pro caspase-9, and elevation level of caspase-12 were observed in cells exposed to H2O2 + TM compared with cells treated with H2O2, respectively, suggesting apoptosis induced by H2O2 was enhanced by ERS or autophagy triggered by H2O2. The above results suggest that the ERS inducer may be a potential target for pharmacological intervention targeted to ERS or autophagy to enhance oxidative stress injury of tumor cells induced by antitumor drugs.
Energy Efficient Multi-User MISO Communication Using Low Resolution Large Intelligent Surfaces

We consider a multi-user Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) communication system comprising of a multiantenna base station communicating in the downlink simultaneously with multiple single-antenna mobile users. This communication is assumed to be assisted by a Large Intelligent Surface (LIS) that consists of many nearly passive antenna elements, whose parameters can be tuned according to desired objectives. The latest design advances on these surfaces suggest cheap elements effectively acting as low resolution (even 1-bit resolution) phase shifters, whose joint configuration affects the electromagnetic behavior of the wireless propagation channel. In this paper, we investigate the suitability of LIS for green communications in terms of Energy Efficiency (EE), which is expressed as the number of bits per Joule. In particular, for the considered multi-user MISO system, we design the transmit powers per user and the values for the surface elements that jointly maximize the system's EE performance. Our representative simulation results show that LIS-assisted communication, even with nearly passive 1-bit resolution antenna elements, provides significant EE gains compared to conventional relay-assisted communication.
Protective Effect of Grape Seed Procyanidins against H2 O2 -Induced Oxidative Stress in PC-12 Neuroblastoma Cells: Structure-Activity Relationships.

To establish a structure-activity relationship for procyanidins, we verified the cyto-protective effect of 13 grape seed procyanidins, ranging from monomers to trimers against H2 O2 -induced oxidative stress in PC-12 neuroblastoma cells. Our study demonstrated some procyanidins were able to significantly protect PC-12 cells from the H2 O2 -induced cytotoxicity suggesting they possess neuroprotective effects against oxidative stress. Procyanidins' protective effects against oxidative stress mainly depended on their polymerization degree in addition to their structural features. A positive correlation was found between procyanidins' polymerization degree and the protective effect against oxidative stress in PC-12 cells. The presence of 3- or 3'-galloylated groups in the C-ring of procyanidin molecules significantly increased their protective activity as well. These results demonstrated that galloylated high-molecular-mass procyanidins would be of more interesting as promising antioxidant natural compounds. This work for the first time demonstrated the structure-activity relationships of 13 procyanidins' antioxidative stress activity, which could have a significant impact on future development of procyanidins for healthy food products or drugs to treat disease such as neurodegenerative disorders. PRACTICAL APPLICATION This work evaluated the protective effect of procyanidins against oxidative stress in PC-12 neuroblastoma cells and established their activity-structure relationships, which provides useful cellular evidence for the further investigating the structure-optimizing and function-exploiting of procyanidins.
The Action of the Hexokinase Inhibitor 2‐deoxy‐d‐glucose on Cryptosporidium parvum and the Discovery of Activities against the Parasite Hexokinase from Marketed Drugs

Cryptosporidium parvum is one of the major species causing mild to severe cryptosporidiosis in humans and animals. We have previously observed that 2‐deoxy‐d‐glucose (2DG) could inhibit both the enzyme activity of C. parvum hexokinase (CpHK) and the parasite growth in vitro. However, the action and fate of 2DG in C. parvum was not fully investigated. In the present study, we showed that, although 2DG could be phosphorylated by CpHK to form 2DG‐6‐phosphate (2DG6P), the anti‐cryptosporidial activity of 2DG was mainly attributed to the action of 2DG on CpHK, rather than the action of 2DG or 2DG6P on the downstream enzyme glucose‐6‐phosphate isomerase (CpGPI) nor 2DG6P on CpHK. These observations further supported the hypothesis that CpHK could serve as a drug target in the parasite. We also screened 1,200 small molecules consisting of marketed drugs against CpHK, from which four drugs were identified as CpHK inhibitors with micromolar level of anti‐cryptospordial activities at concentrations nontoxic to the host cells (i.e. hexachlorphene, thimerosal, alexidine dihydrochloride, and ebselen with EC50 = 0.53, 1.77, 8.1 and 165 μM, respectively). The anti‐CpHK activity of the four existing drugs provided us new reagents for studying the enzyme properties of the parasite hexokinase.
Cancer survivorship and identity: what about the role of oncology social workers?

ABSTRACT With cancer survival rates rapidly increasing over time, more people are living into the survivorship stage of their cancer experience. Furthermore, the experience of cancer may impact individuals long after treatment has ceased. This paper presents the results of a mapping review implemented to explore key themes in the literature related to issues with identity following the completion of cancer treatment. The review included 22 studies including quantitative, qualitative, mixed method, and review studies as well as conceptual papers. Findings revealed key descriptions post-cancer treatment identities, literature focused on dominant discourses and counter-discourses around cancer survivorship, and key themes focused on identity management and the roles of Oncology Social Workers in supporting identity issues in postcancer treatment. This review presents a ‘map’ of current research on identity and cancer survivorship, helping to identify major gaps in the literature, direct future research, and inform practice.
Graph Pattern Mining and Learning through User-Defined Relations

In this work we propose R-GPM, a parallel computing framework for graph pattern mining (GPM) through a user-defined subgraph relation. More specifically, we enable the computation of statistics of patterns through their subgraph classes, generalizing traditional GPM methods. R-GPM provides efficient estimators for these statistics by employing a MCMC sampling algorithm combined with several optimizations. We provide both theoretical guarantees and empirical evaluations of our estimators in application scenarios such as stochastic optimization of deep high-order graph neural network models and pattern (motif) counting. We also propose and evaluate optimizations that enable improvements of our estimators accuracy, while reducing their computational costs in up to 3-orders-of-magnitude. Finally, we show that R-GPM is scalable, providing near-linear speedups.
Multimodal Structural Neuroimaging Markers of Brain Development and ADHD Symptoms.

OBJECTIVE: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a multifactorial disorder with diverse associated risk factors and comorbidities. In this study, the authors sought to understand ADHD from a dimensional perspective and to identify neuroanatomical correlates of traits and behaviors that span diagnostic criteria. METHODS: Multimodal neuroimaging data and multi-informant cognitive and clinical data were collected in a densely phenotyped pediatric cohort (N=160; 70 with ADHD; age range, 9-12 years). Multivariate analysis identified associations between clinical and cognitive factors and multimodal neuroimaging markers (across tissue volume, cortical thickness, cortical area, and white matter microstructure). The resulting imaging markers were validated in an independent cohort (N=231; 132 with ADHD; age range, 7-18 years). RESULTS: Four novel patterns of neuroanatomical variation that related to phenotypic variation were identified. The first imaging pattern captured association of head size with sex, socioeconomic status, and mathematics and reading performance. The second pattern captured variation associated with development and showed that individuals with delayed development were more likely to be receiving ADHD medication. The third pattern was associated with hyperactivity, greater comorbidities, poorer cognition, lower parental education, and lower quality of life. The fourth pattern was associated with a particular profile of poorer cognition and irritability independent of ADHD. The authors further demonstrated that these imaging patterns could predict variation in age and ADHD symptoms in an independent cohort. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that ADHD presentation may arise from a summation of several clinical, developmental, or cognitive factors, each with a distinct neuroanatomical foundation. This informs the neurobiological foundations of ADHD and highlights the value of detailed phenotypic data in understanding the neurobiology underlying neurodevelopmental disorders.
Efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban vs. warfarin in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation and a history of cancer: observations from ROCKET AF

AIMS The management of anticoagulation therapy in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and cancer is challenging due to increased thrombotic and bleeding risks. We sought to determine the safety and efficacy of rivaroxaban in patients with AF and a history of cancer. METHODS AND RESULTS ROCKET AF randomized 14 264 patients with AF to rivaroxaban or warfarin with a median follow-up of 1.9 years. Cox regression models were used to assess the association between cancer history and clinical outcomes, and the relative treatment effect of rivaroxaban vs. warfarin in these patients. A total of 640 patients enrolled in ROCKET AF had a history of cancer, with the most common types being prostate (28.6%), colorectal (16.1%), and breast (14.7%) cancer. Patients with a history of cancer were older, more frequently male, more likely to have prior vitamin K antagonist (VKA) use and had higher rates of overall bleeding [hazard ratio (HR) 1.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.16-1.47; P < 0.0001] and non-cardiovascular death (HR 1.47, 95% CI 1.04-2.07; P = 0.031) compared with those with no cancer history. There were no significant associations between cancer history and stroke, venous thromboembolism, or myocardial infarction. The relative efficacy of rivaroxaban vs. warfarin for prevention of stroke/systemic embolism was similar in those with and without a history of cancer (interaction P-value = 0.21). CONCLUSION In ROCKET AF, a history of cancer was associated with a higher risk of bleeding and non-cardiovascular death, but not ischaemic events. The relative efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban compared with warfarin were not significantly different in patients with and without a history of cancer. The results of this study are exploratory and should be taken in context of the study population, which may not be generalizable to those with advanced malignancy. Further investigation is needed to understand optimal anticoagulation strategies in patients with AF and cancer.Clinical trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00403767.
Three-Dimensional Interfacial Stress Sensor Based on Graphene Foam

The measurement of pressure is one of the most important functions of the artificial skin. In general, most of the pressure is not only coupled with the vertical normal interfacial stress (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Z$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-direction) but also the parallel shear interfacial stress (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$X$ </tex-math></inline-formula>- and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Y$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-direction). It is very important to develop a sensor to measure the 3-D interfacial stress. This paper presents a 3-D interfacial stress sensor based on graphene foams and super-elastic materials. A data-fitted measurement model is constructed to calculate the 3-D interfacial stress. The sensor is measured by utilizing a resistive measurement circuit, and experiments are performed with a 3-D stress simulation system. Results show that the fabricated sensor is capable of measuring the normal stress at a range of 0–50 kPa with a sensitivity of 0.0270 kPa<sup>−1</sup> and the shear stress at a range of 0–25 kPa with a sensitivity of 0.0169 kPa<sup>−1</sup>. The response time of the sensor is 80 ms, which is less than the human response time. By taking advantage of the graphene foam, our sensor has a high sensitivity, good stability, and has potential application in the fields of artificial skin, intelligent robot, wearable electronics, and prosthetics.
Equivalent Scanning Network of Unpadded CNNs

This letter presents a theory of scanning a signal with a sliding window, where the window's mapping function is built upon a convolutional neural network (CNN). When using a CNN as the sliding window, we show that the resultant feature maps are equivalent to the maps obtained by applying another CNN (called EQ-ScanNet) to the whole signal. The EQ-ScanNet can be established by reconfiguring the original CNN with dilated (i.e., sparse kernel) convolutions. We clarify that, this property is originated from the noble identity (i.e., the swapping equivalence of downsample and FIR filter), and extend the property to the generalized convolution that subsumes CNN's window-sliding operations. We further show that an unpadded CNN is a necessary condition for formulating the EQ-ScanNet.
Application of a non-parametric non-mixture cure rate model for analyzing the survival of patients with colorectal cancer in Iran

OBJECTIVES Colorectal cancer (CRC) patients are considered to have been cured when the mortality rate of individuals with the disease returns to the same level as expected in the general population. This study aimed to assess the impact of various risk factors on the cure fraction of CRC patients using a real dataset of Iranian CRC patients with a non-mixture non-parametric cure model. METHODS This study was conducted on the medical records of 512 patients who were definitively diagnosed with CRC at Taleghani Hospital, Tehran, Iran from 2001 to 2007. A non-mixture non-parametric cure rate model was applied to the data after using stepwise selection to identify the risk factors of CRC. RESULTS For non-cured cases, the mean survival time was 1,243.83 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 1,174.65 to 1,313.00) and the median survival time was 1,493.00 days (95% CI, 1,398.67 to 1,587.33). The 1- and 3-year survival rates were 92.9% (95% CI, 91.0 to 95.0) and 73.4% (95% CI, 68.0 to 79.0), respectively. Pathologic stage T1 of the primary tumor (estimate=0.58; p=0.013), a poorly differentiated tumor (estimate=1.17; p<0.001), a body mass index (BMI) between 18.6 and 24.9 kg/m2 (estimate=−0.60; p=0.04), and a BMI between 25.0 and 29.9 kg/m2 (estimate=−1.43; p<0.001) had significant impacts on the cure fraction of CRC in the multivariate analysis. The proportion of cured patients was 64.1% (95% CI, 56.7 to 72.4). CONCLUSIONS This study found that the pathologic stage of the primary tumor, tumor grade, and BMI were potential risk factors that had an impact on the cure fraction. A non-mixture non-parametric cure rate model provides a flexible framework for accurately determining the impact of risk factors on the long-term survival of patients with CRC.
Synthetic Social Media Data Generation

This paper presents a novel system, synthetic high-fidelity social media data generator (SHIELD), for generating the synthetic social media data. SHIELD jointly generates time-varying, directed and weighted interaction graph structures and topic-driven text features similar to the input social media data. A synthetic interaction graph is generated by a social network model to minimize the distance to real graph and is enhanced by adding various patterns, such as anomalies and information cascades, interaction types, and temporal dynamics. A synthetic text generator based on the $n$ -gram Markov model is trained under each topic identified by topic modeling. Synthetic text and graph structures are combined through the assignment of synthetic social media entities. Extensive performance evaluation via a graph and text analysis is provided to demonstrate the statistical fidelity of large-scale synthetic data generated by SHIELD. A data evaluation exercise with human participants is executed to identify how difficult it is for a human to distinguish between tweets that were generated by SHIELD and tweets that were posted by real users. Experimental results followed by a statistical significance analysis showed that human participants cannot reliably distinguish between real and synthetic tweets.