Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Minimizing radiation exposure in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography: a review for medical personnel

Fluoroscopy is used frequently during endoscopic procedures, such as endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). However, exposure to radiation is an important health concern, primarily because of the potential increase in the lifetime risk of malignancy. This consideration is important for patients and staff exposed to radiation during ERCP. Thus, an understanding of how radiation doses are measured during ERCP and the potential risks of this radiation is important. Additionally, staff must be educated about methods used to minimize the radiation dose, such as the use of different imaging techniques, the general principles of fluoroscopy, and advances in hardware and software. The use of personal protective equipment is also essential to minimize occupational exposure. However, no comprehensive ERCP guideline on the use of X-ray systems in clinical settings or on radiation protection for operators has been established. This review focuses on the properties of fluoroscopy systems and methods of radiation protection for physicians and assistants participating in ERCP.
The radio continuum spectrum of Mira A and Mira B up to submillimeter wavelengths

We present new measurements of the flux densities at submillimeter wavelengths based on ALMA band 7 (338 GHz) and band 9 (679 GHz) observations to better constrain the origin of the continuum emission of the Mira AB binary system and to check its orbit. We have measured the Mira A and Mira B continuum in ALMA band 7, with a resolution of ~0"31, and for the first time in ALMA band 9, with a resolution of ~0"18. We resolved the binary system at both bands, and derived the continuum spectral index of the stars and their relative position. We also analyzed ALMA SciVer data obtained in bands 6 and 3. Measurements at centimeter wavelengths obtained by other authors have been included in our study of the spectral energy distribution of the Mira components. The Mira A continuum emission has a spectral index of 1.98+-0.04 extending from submillimeter down to centimeter wavelengths. The spectral index of the Mira B continuum emission is 1.93+-0.06 at wavelengths ranging from submillimeter to ~3.1 mm, and a shallower spectral index of 1.22+-0.09 at longer wavelengths. The Mira A continuum emission up to submillimeter wavelengths is consistent with that of a radio photosphere surrounding the evolved star for which models predict a spectral index close to 2. The Mira B continuum emission cannot be described with a single ionized component. An extremely compact and dense region around the star can produce the nearly thermal continuum measured in the 0.4-3.1 mm wavelength range, and an inhomogeneous, less dense, and slightly larger ionized envelope could be responsible for the emission at longer wavelengths. Our results illustrate the potential of ALMA for high precision astrometry of binary systems. We have found a significant discrepancy of ~14 milliarcsec between the ALMA measurements and the predicted orbit positions.
Theoretical Analysis of Null Foley-Sammon Transform and its Implications

Null Foley-Sammon Transform (NFST) has received increasing attention in the machine learning and pattern recognition literature. NFST finds a discriminative nullspace where all samples of the same class get mapped into a single point. It has a closed form solution and is free of parameters to tune. NFST has been leveraged in many areas including novelty detection, person or vehicle re-identification and achieved state-of-the-art results. Motivated from its attractive properties and its effectiveness in wide range of applications, in this paper we focus on the theoretical analysis of NFST. In previous literature, NFST was shown to exist in small sample size (SSS) case. We first prove that NFST can exist in non-SSS case also, under certain conditions. Thereby, we extend the domain of applicability of NFST to a more general case. Secondly, we perform analysis of the singular points of NFST, revealing important insights on their identities and existence. Thirdly, we show the theoretical relation between NFST of SSS data and NFST of the non-SSS data obtained by PCA. Fourthly, we show that this theoretical relation can be exploited to obtain an efficient algorithm for computing NFST on high dimensional SSS data. Finally, we perform extensive experiments to validate our theoretical analysis.
Thermal‐exchange HLA‐E multimers reveal specificity in HLA‐E and NKG2A/CD94 complex interactions

There is growing interest in HLA‐E‐restricted T‐cell responses as a possible novel, highly conserved, vaccination targets in the context of infectious and malignant diseases. The developing field of HLA multimers for the detection and study of peptide‐specific T cells has allowed the in‐depth study of TCR repertoires and molecular requirements for efficient antigen presentation and T‐cell activation. In this study, we developed a method for efficient peptide thermal exchange on HLA‐E monomers and multimers allowing the high‐throughput production of HLA‐E multimers. We optimized the thermal‐mediated peptide exchange, and flow cytometry staining conditions for the detection of TCR and NKG2A/CD94 receptors, showing that this novel approach can be used for high‐throughput identification and analysis of HLA‐E‐binding peptides which could be involved in T‐cell and NK cell‐mediated immune responses. Importantly, our analysis of NKG2A/CD94 interaction in the presence of modified peptides led to new molecular insights governing the interaction of HLA‐E with this receptor. In particular, our results reveal that interactions of HLA‐E with NKG2A/CD94 and the TCR involve different residues. Altogether, we present a novel HLA‐E multimer technology based on thermal‐mediated peptide exchange allowing us to investigate the molecular requirements for HLA‐E/peptide interaction with its receptors.
International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons survey of surgeons’ preference on rectal cancer treatment

Purpose Rectal cancer treatment has a wide range of possible approaches from radical extirpative surgery to nonoperative watchful waiting following chemoradiotherapy, with or without, additional chemotherapy. Our goal was to assess the personal opinion of active practicing surgeons on rectal cancer treatment if he/she was the patient. Methods A panel of the International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ISUCRS) selected 10 questions that were included in a questionnaire that included other items including demographics. The questionnaire was distributed electronically to ISUCRS fellows and other surgeons included in our database and remained open from April 16 to 28, 2020. Results One hundred sixty-three specialists completed the survey. The majority of surgeons (n=65, 39.9%) chose the minimally invasive (laparoscopic) surgery for their personal treatment of rectal cancer. For low-lying rectal cancer T1 and T2, the treatment choice was standard chemoradiation+local excision (n=60, 36.8%) followed by local excision±chemoradiotherapy if needed (n=55, 33.7%). In regards to locally advanced low rectal cancer T3 or greater, the preference of the responders was for laparoscopic surgery (n=65, 39.9%). We found a statistically significant relationship between surgeons’ age and their preference for minimally invasive techniques demonstrating an age-based bias on senior surgeons’ inclination toward open approach. Conclusion Our survey reveals an age-based preference by surgeons for minimally invasive surgical techniques as well as organ-preserving techniques for personal treatment of treating rectal cancer. Only 1/4 of specialists do adhere to the international guidelines for treating early rectal cancer.
Long-term epigenetic and metabolomic changes in the mouse ventricular myocardium after exertional heat stroke.

Evidence from human epidemiological studies suggests that exertional heat stroke (EHS) results in elevated risk of long-term cardiovascular and systemic disease. Previous results using a preclinical mouse model of EHS demonstrated severe metabolic imbalances in ventricular myocardium developing at 9-14 d of recovery. Whether this resolves over time is unknown. We hypothesized that long-term effects of EHS on the heart reflect retained maladaptive epigenetic responses. In this study, we evaluated genome-wide DNA methylation, RNA-Seq and metabolomic profiles of the left ventricular myocardium in female C57BL/6 mice, 30 d after EHS (exercise in 37.5°C; n = 7-8), compared to exercise controls. EHS mice ran to loss of consciousness, reaching core temperatures of 42.4±0.2°C. All mice recovered quickly. After 30 d, the left ventricles were rapidly frozen for DNA methyl sequencing, RNA-Seq and untargeted metabolomics. Ventricular DNA from EHS mice revealed >13,000 differentially methylated cytosines (DMCs) and >900 differentially methylated regions (DMRs;≥5 DMCs with ≤300 bp between each CpG). Pathway analysis using DMRs revealed alterations in genes regulating basic cell functions, DNA binding, transcription and metabolism. Metabolomics and mRNA expression revealed modest changes that are consistent with a return to homeostasis. Methylation status did not predict RNA expression or metabolomic state at 30 d. We conclude that EHS induces a sustained DNA methylation memory lasting over 30 d of recovery, but ventricular gene expression and metabolism return to a relative homeostasis at rest. Such long-lasting alterations to the DNA methylation landscape could alter responsiveness to environmental or clinical challenges later in life.
3D mapping of phrenic nerve course for radiofrequency pulmonary vein isolation

Phrenic nerve (PN) injury is a rare but severe complication of radiofrequency (RF) pulmonary vein isolation (PVI). The objective of this study was to characterize the typical intracardiac course of the PN with a three‐dimensional electroanatomic mapping system, to quantify the need for modification of the ablation trajectory to avoid delivering an ablation lesion on sites with PN capture, and to identify very circumscribed areas of common PNC on the routine ablation trajectory of a RF‐PVI, allowing fast and effective PN screening for everyday usage.
Stellar mass to halo mass relation from galaxy clustering in VUDS: a high star formation efficiency at z ≃ 3

The relation between the galaxy stellar mass M⋆ and the dark matter halo mass M_h gives important information on the efficiency in forming stars and assembling stellar mass in galaxies. We present measurements of the ratio of stellar mass to halo mass (SMHR) at redshifts 2 < z < 5, obtained from the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey. We use halo occupation distribution (HOD) modelling of clustering measurements on ~3000 galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts to derive the dark matter halo mass M_h, and spectral energy density fitting over a large set of multi-wavelength data to derive the stellar mass M⋆ and compute the SMHR = M⋆/M_h. We find that the SMHR ranges from 1% to 2.5% for galaxies with M⋆ = 1.3 × 10^9 M⊙ to M⋆ = 7.4 × 10^9 M⊙ in DM halos with M_h = 1.3 × 10^(11) M⊙ to M_h = 3 × 10^(11) M⊙. We derive the integrated star formation efficiency (ISFE) of these galaxies and find that the star formation efficiency is a moderate 6−9% for lower mass galaxies, while it is relatively high at 16% for galaxies with the median stellar mass of the sample ~ 7 × 10^9 M⊙. The lower ISFE at lower masses may indicate that some efficient means of suppressing star formation is at work (like SNe feedback), while the high ISFE for the average galaxy at z ~ 3 indicates that these galaxies efficiently build up their stellar mass at a key epoch in the mass assembly process. Based on our results, we propose a possible scenario in which the average massive galaxy at z ~ 3 begins to experience truncation of its star formation within a few million years.
HydraMarker: Efficient, Flexible, and Multifold Marker Field Generation

An n-order marker field is a special binary matrix whose n×n subregions are all distinct from each other in four orientations. It is commonly used to guide the composing process of position-sensing markers, which can be detected and identified in a camera image with very limited scope or severe visibility problems. Despite the advantages, position-sensing markers are rare and overlooked because generating marker fields is difficult. In this article, we broaden the definition of marker field, making it more powerful and flexible. Then, we propose bWFC (binary wave function collapse) and its high-speed version, fast-bWFC, to solve the generation problem. The methods are packaged into an open-sourced toolkit named HydraMarker, with which, users not only can generate marker fields on laptops within a short period of time, but also can highly customize them: preset values; fields and subregions in any shape; multifold local uniqueness. Comparative results indicate that the proposed method has superior efficiency, quality, and capability. It makes marker field generation accessible to common marker designers, opening up more possibilities for fiducial markers.
Predicting the disease severity in male individuals with ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency

Ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency (OTC‐D) is an X‐linked metabolic disease and the most common urea cycle disorder. Due to high phenotypic heterogeneity, ranging from lethal neonatal hyperammonemic events to moderate symptoms and even asymptomatic individuals, the prediction of the disease course at an early disease stage is very important to individually adjust therapies such as medical treatment or liver transplantation. In this translational study, we developed a severity‐adjusted classification system based on in vitro residual enzymatic OTC activity.
Berberine plays a cardioprotective role by inhibiting macrophage Wnt5a/β‐catenin pathway in the myocardium of mice after myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the diseases with high fatality rate. Berberine (BBR) is a monomer compound with various biological functions. And some studies have confirmed that BBR plays an important role in alleviating cardiomyocyte injury after MI. However, the specific mechanism is unclear. In this study, we induced a model of MI by ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery and we surprisingly found that BBR significantly improved ventricular remodeling, with a minor inflammatory and oxidative stress injury, and stronger angiogenesis. Moreover, BBR inhibited the secretion of Wnt5a/β‐catenin pathway in macrophages after MI, thus promoting the differentiation of macrophages into M2 type. In summary, BBR effectively improved cardiac function of mice after MI, and the potential protective mechanism was associated with the regulation of inflammatory responses and the inhibition of macrophage Wnt5a/β‐catenin pathway in the infarcted heart tissues. Importantly, these findings supported BBR as an effective cardioprotective drug after MI.
The CESR Test Accelerator Electron Cloud Research Program Phase I Report

CBP-910, LBNL- CLNS-12_2084 CLNS-12-2084 The CESR Test Accelerator Electron Cloud Research Program Phase I Report Editors: M. A. Palmer, M. G. Billing, G. F. Dugan, M. A. Furman and D. L. Rubin January 11, 2013
A Massive Study of M2-brane Proposals

We test the proposals for the worldvolume theory of M2-branes by studying its maximally supersymmetric mass-deformation. We check the simplest prediction for the mass-deformed theory on N M2-branes: that there should be a set of discrete vacua in one-to-one correspondence with partitions on N. For the mass-deformed Lorentzian three-algebra theory, we find only a single classical vacuum, casting doubt on its M2-brane interpretation. For the mass-deformed ABJM theory, we do find a discrete set of solutions, but these are more numerous than predicted. We discuss possible resolutions of this puzzling discrepancy. We argue that the classical vacuum solutions of the mass-deformed ABJM theory display properties of fuzzy three-spheres, as expected from their gravitational dual interpretation.
An Efficient Fisher Matrix Approximation Method for Large-Scale Neural Network Optimization

Although the shapes of the parameters are not crucial for designing first-order optimization methods in large scale empirical risk minimization problems, they have important impact on the size of the matrix to be inverted when developing second-order type methods. In this article, we propose an efficient and novel second-order method based on the parameters in the real matrix space <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathbb {R}^{m\times n}$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:msup><mml:mi mathvariant="double-struck">R</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mi>m</mml:mi><mml:mo>×</mml:mo><mml:mi>n</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msup></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="wen-ieq1-3213654.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> and a matrix-product approximate Fisher matrix (MatFisher) by using the products of gradients. The size of the matrix to be inverted is much smaller than that of the Fisher information matrix in the real vector space <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathbb {R}^{d}$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:msup><mml:mi mathvariant="double-struck">R</mml:mi><mml:mi>d</mml:mi></mml:msup></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="wen-ieq2-3213654.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>. Moreover, by utilizing the matrix delayed update and the block diagonal approximation techniques, the computational cost can be controlled and is comparable with first-order methods. A global convergence and a superlinear local convergence analysis are established under mild conditions. Numerical results on image classification with ResNet50, quantum chemistry modeling with SchNet, and data-driven partial differential equations solution with PINN illustrate that our method is quite competitive to the state-of-the-art methods.
Cascaded Attention: Adaptive and Gated Graph Attention Network for Multiagent Reinforcement Learning

Modeling the interactive relationships of agents is critical to improving the collaborative capability of a multiagent system. Some methods model these by predefined rules. However, due to the nonstationary problem, the interactive relationship changes over time and cannot be well captured by rules. Other methods adopt a simple mechanism such as an attention network to select the neighbors the current agent should collaborate with. However, in large-scale multiagent systems, collaborative relationships are too complicated to be described by a simple attention network. We propose an adaptive and gated graph attention network (AGGAT), which models the interactive relationships between agents in a cascaded manner. In the AGGAT, we first propose a graph-based hard attention network that roughly filters irrelevant agents. Then, normal soft attention is adopted to decide the importance of each neighbor. Finally, gated attention further refines the collaborative relationship of agents. By using cascaded attention, the collaborative relationship of agents is precisely learned in a coarse-to-fine style. Extensive experiments are conducted on a variety of cooperative tasks. The results indicate that our proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art baselines.
A Synthesized Model of the Near-Wall Behavior in Turbulent Boundary Layers.

Abstract : A model of the near-wall behavior of turbulent boundary layers is presented. Based on an extensive series of primarily visualization experiments, which are described in overview, the model proposes a sequence of events which give rise to the bursting behavior responsible for turbulence production in the near-wall region. The model illustrates how hairpin vortex flow structures, generated during low-speed streak break down and ejection, are also reponsible for the streak regeneration process, thus defining a clear cycle of turbulence generation for the near-wall region. (Author)
ROTATING STELLAR MODELS CAN ACCOUNT FOR THE EXTENDED MAIN-SEQUENCE TURNOFFS IN INTERMEDIATE-AGE CLUSTERS

We show that the extended main-sequence turnoffs seen in intermediate-age Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) clusters, often attributed to age spreads of several 100 Myr, may be easily accounted for by variable stellar rotation in a coeval population. We compute synthetic photometry for grids of rotating stellar evolution models and interpolate them to produce isochrones at a variety of rotation rates and orientations. An extended main-sequence turnoff naturally appears in color–magnitude diagrams at ages just under 1 Gyr, peaks in extent between ∼1 and 1.5 Gyr, and gradually disappears by around 2 Gyr in age. We then fit our interpolated isochrones by eye to four LMC clusters with very extended main-sequence turnoffs: NGC 1783, 1806, 1846, and 1987. In each case, stellar populations with a single age and metallicity can comfortably account for the observed extent of the turnoff region. The new stellar models predict almost no correlation of turnoff color with rotational v sin i ? > . The red part of the turnoff is populated by a combination of slow rotators and edge-on rapid rotators, while the blue part contains rapid rotators at lower inclinations.
Myosin 5b is required for proper localization of the intermicrovillar adhesion complex in the intestinal brush border.

BACKGROUND Intestinal enterocytes have an elaborate apical membrane of actin rich protrusions known as microvilli. The organization of microvilli is orchestrated by the intermicrovillar adhesion complex (IMAC) which connects the distal tips of adjacent microvilli. The IMAC is comprised of CDHR2 and CDHR5 as well as the scaffolding proteins USH1C, ANKS4B and Myosin 7b. To create an IMAC, cells must transport the proteins to the apical membrane. Myosin 5b (MYO5B) is a molecular motor that traffics ion transporters to the apical membrane of enterocytes, and we hypothesized that MYO5B may also be responsible for the localization of IMAC proteins. METHODS & RESULTS To address this question, we used 2 different mouse models: (1) neonatal germline MYO5B knockout (MYO5B KO) mice and (2) adult intestinal specific tamoxifen inducible VillinCreERT2;MYO5Bflox/flox mice. In control mice, immunostaining revealed that CDHR2, CDHR5, USH1C, and MYO7B were highly enriched at the tips of the microvilli. In contrast, neonatal germline and adult MYO5B deficient mice showed loss of apical CDHR2, CDHR5, and MYO7B in the brush border and accumulation in a subapical compartment. Co-localization analysis revealed decreased Mander's coefficients in adult inducible MYO5B deficient mice compared to control mice for CDHR2, CDHR5, USH1C and MYO7B. Scanning electron microscopy images further demonstrated aberrant microvilli packing in adult inducible MYO5B deficient mouse small intestine. CONCLUSIONS These data indicate that MYO5B is responsible for the delivery of IMAC components to the apical membrane.