Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Saving sight in China and beyond: the Lifeline Express model

Cataract and diabetic retinopathy are leading causes of blindness globally. Lifeline Express (LEX) has pioneered the provision of cataract surgery in rural China from custom-built trains and eye centres nationwide. Over the past two decades, LEX has provided free cataract surgery for over 180 000 patients in China. In China, half of the adult population has prediabetes and 113 million adults have diabetes. Recognising the rising threat of diabetic retinopathy, LEX has expanded to providing free diabetic retinopathy screening nationwide by establishing 29 Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Centres across China. Source of referrals included host hospitals, the community and out-reach mobile vans equipped with fundus cameras. Fundi photos taken in the mobile vans were electronically transferred to primary graders. LEX also leveraged the widespread smartphone use to provide electronic medical reports via WeChat, the most popular instant messenger app in China. From April 2014 to December 2016, 34 506 patients with diabetes underwent screening, of which 27.2% (9,396) were identified to have diabetic retinopathy. China’s latest national health strategy (‘Healthy China 2030 Plan’) has championed the ‘prevention first’ principle and early screening of chronic diseases. LEX has accordingly evolved to extend its services to save sight in China—from cataract surgery to diabetic retinopathy screening and most recently outreaching beyond its national borders in a pilot South–South collaboration. With health at the top of the China’s developmental agenda and the country’s growing role in global health—LEX’s large-scale telemedicine-enabled programme could represent a potentially scalable model for nationwide diabetic retinopathy screening elsewhere.
Impact of teicoplanin maintenance dose and MIC values on the clinical outcomes of patients treated for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia

Objectives Teicoplanin, a glycopeptide, is regarded as among the drug choices for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. Few studies have evaluated the relationship between teicoplanin minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) and outcomes among patients with serious MRSA infections. Subjects and methods We investigated the relationship between teicoplanin maintenance dose and clinical outcomes, on the completion of teicoplanin therapy, in bacteremia patients with MRSA infection, with different teicoplanin MICs. A total of 146 adult patients with MRSA bacteremia were enrolled at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital between September 2012 and September 2015. Results A higher number of patients in the high-dose regimen group (6 mg/kg/12 h) had favorable outcomes than those in the standard-dose regimen group (6 mg/kg/24 h) (84.1% vs 41.2%; p<0.01), regardless of the teicoplanin MICs. In the multivariate analysis, a Pittsburgh bacteremia score ≥4 (OR, 0.07, 95% CI, 0.03–0.19) was a risk factor for an unfavorable final clinical response, whereas high-dose teicoplanin maintenance therapy for MRSA bacteremia was significantly associated with a favorable final response (OR, 25.3 [95% CI, 4.43–144.03] for isolates with a teicoplanin MIC ≥1.5 mg/L and OR, 5.6 [95% CI, 1.57–19.91] for isolates with a teicoplanin MIC <1.5 mg/L). Survival at 30 days was significantly better for patients receiving high-dose teicoplanin maintenance treatment, regardless of the teicoplanin MICs of the MRSA isolates. Patients were selected using propensity score matching, based on the independent predictors of a favorable final outcome. After appropriate propensity score matching, patients in the high-dose regimen group still had a statistically significant favorable outcome at the end of treatment (84.1% vs 40.9%; p<0.01). Conclusion The results suggested that high-dose teicoplanin maintenance treatment is associated with more favorable outcomes than standard-dose teicoplanin maintenance treatment, for patients with MRSA bacteremia, regardless of the teicoplanin MIC.
Self-triggered sampling control for networked control systems with delays and packets dropout

ABSTRACT In this paper, a self-triggered sampling (STS) scheme is proposed for a networked control system with delays and packets dropout. Sampling periods are given based on a probability of successful transmission for packets by signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio measured via quality-of-service. The networked control system is described as a switched delta operator system by the STS scheme. Sufficient conditions of stability for the network control system with delays and packets dropout are given with average dwell time in terms of linear matrix inequalities. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness and potential for the developed techniques.
Spatial Retrieval of Broadband Dielectric Spectra

A broadband soil dielectric spectra retrieval approach (1 MHz–2 GHz) has been implemented for a layered half space. The inversion kernel consists of a two-port transmission line forward model in the frequency domain and a constitutive material equation based on a power law soil mixture rule (Complex Refractive Index Model—CRIM). The spatially-distributed retrieval of broadband dielectric spectra was achieved with a global optimization approach based on a Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE) algorithm using the full set of the scattering parameters. For each layer, the broadband dielectric spectra were retrieved with the corresponding parameters thickness, porosity, water saturation and electrical conductivity of the aqueous pore solution. For the validation of the approach, a coaxial transmission line cell measured with a network analyzer was used. The possibilities and limitations of the inverse parameter estimation were numerically analyzed in four scenarios. Expected and retrieved layer thicknesses, soil properties and broadband dielectric spectra in each scenario were in reasonable agreement. Hence, the model is suitable for an estimation of in-homogeneous material parameter distributions. Moreover, the proposed frequency domain approach allows an automatic adaptation of layer number and thickness or regular grids in time and/or space.
Socheongryong-tang for improving nasal symptoms associated with allergic rhinitis

Introduction: Socheongryong-tang (SCRT) is an herbal medicine with anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic properties, commonly used in East Asian countries to reduce rhinitis symptoms. There have been several clinical studies of its effects on allergic rhinitis (AR), but no trials comparing it with conventional treatment. We present the protocol for a feasibility trial to assess the safety and clinical effectiveness of SCRT in AR in comparison with cetirizine. Methods and analysis: This is a randomized, open-label, cetirizine-controlled clinical trial. A total of 30 AR patients who have signed informed consent forms will be recruited and randomly assigned to SCRT or cetirizine groups at a 1:1 ratio. The participants will visit the clinical research center every week and receive SCRT granules or cetirizine tablets. SCRT will be taken twice daily, cetirizine will be taken once daily, and treatment medication will be taken for 2 weeks. Data will be collected at baseline, at week 2, and at week 4 after random allocation. The primary outcome will be the mean change in the total nasal symptom score from baseline to week 2. Secondary outcome measures will include the mini Rhinoconjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire and total serum immunoglobulin E. To assess the safety of SCRT, a liver and renal function test will be conducted before and after treatment, and the participants will be asked about any occurrence of adverse events at every visit. The recruitment rate, completion rate, and medication adherence will also be calculated to assess feasibility. Discussion: The findings of this study are expected to provide the basis for a full-scale randomized controlled trial to confirm the safety and effectiveness of SCRT for the treatment of nasal symptoms in patients with AR patients not controlled by conventional therapy. Trial registration: This study has been registered at the Korean National Clinical Trial Registry, Clinical Research Information Service (KCT0002380).
Multi-Spectroscopic and Theoretical Analysis on the Interaction between Human Serum Albumin and a Capsaicin Derivative—RPF101

The interaction between the main carrier of endogenous and exogenous compounds in the human bloodstream (human serum albumin, HSA) and a potential anticancer compound (the capsaicin analogue RPF101) was investigated by spectroscopic techniques (circular dichroism, steady-state, time-resolved, and synchronous fluorescence), zeta potential, and computational method (molecular docking). Steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence experiments indicated an association in the ground state between HSA:RPF101. The interaction is moderate, spontaneous (ΔG° < 0), and entropically driven (ΔS° = 0.573 ± 0.069 kJ/molK). This association does not perturb significantly the potential surface of the protein, as well as the secondary structure of the albumin and the microenvironment around tyrosine and tryptophan residues. Competitive binding studies indicated Sudlow’s site I as the main protein pocket and molecular docking results suggested hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions as the main binding forces.
Application and utility of a low-cost unmanned aerial system to manage and conserve aquatic resources in four Texas rivers

Low-cost unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have recently gained increasing attention in natural resources management due to their versatility and demonstrated utility in collection of high-resolution, temporally-specific geospatial data. This study applied low-cost UAS to support the geospatial data needs of aquatic resources management projects in four Texas rivers. Specifically, a UAS was used to (1) map invasive salt cedar (multiple species in the genus Tamarix) that have degraded instream habitat conditions in the Pease River, (2) map instream meso-habitats and structural habitat features (e.g., boulders, woody debris) in the South Llano River as a baseline prior to watershed-scale habitat improvements, (3) map enduring pools in the Blanco River during drought conditions to guide smallmouth bass removal efforts, and (4) quantify river use by anglers in the Guadalupe River. These four case studies represent an initial step toward assessing the full range of UAS applications in aquatic resources management, including their ability to offer potential cost savings, time efficiencies, and higher quality data over traditional survey methods.
Early diabetic retinopathy diagnosis based on local retinal blood vessel analysis in optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) images

PURPOSE This paper introduces a new computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system for detecting early-stage diabetic retinopathy (DR) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) images. METHODS The proposed DR-CAD system is based on the analysis of new local features that describe both the appearance and retinal structure in OCTA images. It starts with a new segmentation approach that has the ability to extract the blood vessels from superficial and deep retinal OCTA maps. The high capability of our segmentation approach stems from using a joint Markov-Gibbs random field stochastic model integrating a 3D spatial statistical model with a first-order appearance model of the blood vessels. Following the segmentation step, three new local features are estimated from the segmented vessels and the foveal avascular zone (FAZ): (a) vessels density, (b) blood vessel calibre, and (c) width of the FAZ. To distinguish mild DR patients from normal cases, the estimated three features are used to train and test a support vector machine (SVM) classifier with the radial basis function (RBF) kernel. RESULTS On a cohort of 105 subjects, the presented DR-CAD system demonstrated an overall accuracy (ACC) of 94.3%, a sensitivity of 97.9%, a specificity of 87.0%, the area under the curve (AUC) of 92.4%, and a Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of 95.8%. This in turn demonstrates the promise of the proposed CAD system as a supplemental tool for early detection of DR. CONCLUSION We developed a new DR-CAD system that is capable of diagnosing DR in its early stage. The proposed system is based on extracting three different features from the segmented OCTA images, which reflect the changes in the retinal vasculature network.
A network-based signature to predict the survival of non-smoking lung adenocarcinoma

Background A substantial increase in the number of non-smoking lung adenocarcinoma (LAC) patients has been drawing extensive attention in the past decade. However, effective biomarkers, which could guide the precise treatment, are still limited for identifying high-risk patients. Here, we provide a network-based signature to predict the survival of non-smoking LAC. Materials and methods Gene expression profiles were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus. Significant gene co-expression networks and hub genes were identified by Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis. Potential mechanisms and pathways of co-expression networks were analyzed by Gene Ontology. The predictive signature was constructed by penalized Cox regression analysis and tested in two independent datasets. Results Two distinct co-expression modules were significantly correlated with the non-smoking status across 4 Gene Expression Omnibus datasets. Gene Ontology revealed that nuclear division and cell cycle pathways were main mechanisms of the blue module and that genes in the turquoise module were involved in lymphocyte activation and cell adhesion pathways. Seventeen genes were selected from hub genes at an optimal lambda value and built the prognostic signature. The prognostic signature distinguished the survival of non-smoking LAC (training: hazard ratio [HR]=3.696, 95% CI: 2.025–6.748, P<0.001; testing: HR=2.9, 95% CI: 1.322–6.789, P=0.006; HR=2.78, 95% CI: 1.658–6.654, P=0.022) and had moderate predictive abilities in the training and validation datasets. Conclusion The prognostic signature is a promising predictor of non-smoking LAC patients, which might benefit clinical practice and precision therapeutic management.
Top management team characteristics and team processes : A review

In a fiercely competitive market and rapidly changing business environment, it is difficult for individual leaders to scan the complex external environments and make critical decisions on the future sustainable development of the companies, hence enterprises needs urgently to build effective top management teams to help them solve a number of complicated and difficult problems. On the other hand, since Hambrick and Mason (1984) put forward the upper echelons theory which marks the beginning of top management team research, many of the studies on top management teams have demonstrated that top management team characteristics and processes have significant influences on corporate strategy and performance. This study reviews the extant literature on top management teams, especially the empirical research. This review mainly summarizes and analyzes the theoretical development related to the upper echelons, the effects of top management team characteristics on organizational outcomes, team processes and environmental influences, further synthesizes and integrates these research findings into a circle model to clarify the relationships among them, meanwhile providing some directions for future research on top management teams. JEL classification: M540, M120
Image-based Multimodal Biometric Authentication Using Double Random Phase Encoding

This paper presents an image-based multimodal biometric authentication scheme that utilizes a popular image encryption technique, known as double random phase encoding (DRPE). The proposed scheme aims at protecting biometric templates against unauthorized disclosure without deteriorating the recognition accuracy. Unlike conventional feature-based biometric authentication methods, the proposed scheme uses phase-based image matching of images captured from the employed biometric modalities; namely, palmprint and ﬁngerprint, in order to enhance both accuracy and security of the suggested recognition system. A palmprint image is used as a secret key to encrypt a ﬁngerprint image, captured from the same user, using DRPE. The encrypted ﬁngerprint image can be successfully decrypted only if the phase-only-correlation between enrollment and authentication palmprint images is suﬃciently high ( i.e. the two images belonging to the same user). Then, the decrypted image is matched against a fresh ﬁngerprint image, also captured during veriﬁcation, and the overall authentication process succeeds if the matching result exceeds a prede-ﬁned threshold. The experimental results illustrate the eﬃcacy of the proposed scheme and show that it can improve the security of biometric data without deteriorating the recognition accuracy.
Equity crowdfunding in technology transfer strategies and licensing

The main aim of this study is to investigate to what extent equity crowdfunding could enable firms to outsource research and development activities. Likewise, the present study aims at analysing the relationship between desorptive capacity (DCAP) and equity crowdfunding performance. We also aim at studying the mediation role of ICT firm's capabilities, connective capacity and minor equity ownership. In this regard, this study intends to pioneer into connecting the knowledge management theory with the crowdfunding studies. A sample of 180 projects based on the top ten European equity crowdfunding platforms has been used. Findings indicate that desorptive capacity enables companies in developing external knowledge retention and expoitation which, in turn, enhance equity crowdfunding performance.
Application of Video Watermarking Using Subdivision Technique to Enhance Information Security

This paper proposes an innovative technique of watermark video security using Watermark Sub-Division method. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate Video Watermark Subdivision Algorithm (VWSA) to secure watermarked secret information. In this algo-rithm watermarked secret data is subdivided into suitable parts and pixel value of every part is embedded with the same pixel value of a selected frame of video and locates the respective oﬀsets as secret key. At the receiver end the same pixel values are correlated with the Red, Green, Blue (RGB) plane of frames and watermark secret data is recovered based on the amount of correlations achieved. We have applied various types of attacks on watermarked video during transmission and recovered both original video and watermarked secret data without any loss of information. The simulation results demonstrate that the security parameters are improved and the embedded watermark is robust and invisible. Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Similarity Index (SI) measurable parameters are also calculated to test the quality and matching performance between the original watermark and the extracted watermark to achieve impercep-tibility.
Behavioral and Perceptual Differences between Sexes in Dogs: An Overview

Simple Summary We explore the differences in male and female dogs regarding personality traits as well as cognitive and perceptual processes. Our aim was to explore whether the differences in male and female dogs were affected by the domestication process. The results show that dogs are largely in line with the life-history theories, reflecting the sex differences described in wild animals. Abstract In this paper, we review the scientific reports of sex-related differences in dogs as compared to the outcomes described for wild animals. Our aim was to explore whether the differences in male and female dogs were affected by the domestication process, in which artificial selection is the main driver. For this purpose, we used information regarding personality traits, cognitive processes, and perception, for which there is a wide theoretical framework in behavioral ecology. Aggressiveness and boldness, described as a behavioral syndrome, were reported as being higher in males than females. Females also seemed more inclined to interspecific social interactions with humans in tasks that require cooperative skills, whereas males appeared more inclined to social play, thus implying different levels of social engagement between the sexes, depending on the context. Studies on cognitive processes underlined a greater flexibility in resorting to a particular navigation strategy in males. Most lateralization studies seem to support the view that males are preferentially left-handed and females are preferentially right-handed. Reports on visual focusing coherently rank females as superior in focusing on single social and physical stimuli. Only male dogs are able to discriminate kin; however, the timing of the olfactory recording in sexes is related to the stimulus relevance. Dogs are largely in line with life-history theories, which indicate that sex differences in dogs are mainly rooted in their biological and evolutionary heritage, remaining unchanged despite artificial selection. In contrast, the higher intraspecific sociability in wild male animals was not replicated in dogs.
Serious games as an educational strategy for management and leadership development in postgraduate medical education – an exploratory inquiry

Background Previous research has shown that medical residents are in need of additional training in management and leadership skills. One of the possible ways of teaching this competency is the use of a serious game. This study explores residents’ views of the potential use of a serious game to teach a module on negotiation in practice management and leadership curriculum. Method The aim of this study was to identify the features required to design a serious game for management and leadership education, including potential scenarios for such a game. Qualitative interviews were conducted with six medical residents. After transcription and coding of data, thematic analysis was used to group the data into four themes, namely: 1) CanMEDS leader competency, 2) personal views about negotiation, 3) views about serious games, and 4) educational needs in a serious game. Results Our findings revealed that leadership and negotiation were two domains where residents felt they needed additional training. Those who were already familiar with medical applications and had them installed on their smartphones or tablets had a more positive attitude toward gaming than those who did not. The residents were mostly interested in how realistic the content of a serious game was and its ability to combine management and leadership skills with medical knowledge and clinical expertise. Conclusions The findings in this study demonstrate that serious games have the potential to teach certain aspects of management and leadership. The study shows that residents are receptive to the use of serious games and, if well designed, believe that it can be used to improve their management and leadership competencies.