Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Treatment of non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease with metformin versus lifestyle intervention in insulin‐resistant adolescents

Abstract: The presence of fatty liver per ultrasound and liver‐associated enzymes were measured in a select cohort of youth with both obesity and insulin resistance, and the effect of metformin on these parameters evaluated. Fifty obese, multiethnic, insulin‐resistant adolescents (mean age 15.1 yr, mean body mass index 39.8 kg/m2) were randomized to receive lifestyle recommendations plus either twice per day doses of 850 mg of metformin or placebo. Fasting and post‐glucose challenge biochemistries and liver ultrasounds were compared at baseline and 6 months. The prevalence of fatty liver was 74%, elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) 14%, aspartate aminotransferase (AST) 14%, and gamma‐glutamyl transferase (GGT) 17%. Fatty liver was mild in 23%, moderate in 31%, and severe in 46%. Fatty liver was more common in male and Hispanic subjects and elevated ALT more common in Hispanic subjects. Subjects with fatty liver appeared more insulin resistant (higher fasting insulin and triglycerides, lower high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol) and had higher ALT and AST. At 6 months, mean ALT, GGT, and fasting insulin improved significantly in all subjects. Fatty liver prevalence (p < 0.04), severity (p < 0.04), and fasting insulin (p < 0.025) improved significantly with metformin compared to placebo. Non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) occurs with a high prevalence and severity in obese, insulin‐resistant adolescents. While metformin plus lifestyle intervention appears promising, defining NAFLD therapies capable of preventing fibrosis and cirrhosis requires further study.
Taxim: An Example-based Simulation Model for GelSight Tactile Sensors and its Sim-to-Real Applications

Simulation is widely used in robotics for system verification and largescale data collection. However, simulating a robot system efficiently and with high fidelity, from sensing, perception to manipulation, has been a long-standing challenge. Tactile sensing, as one of the sensing modalities has shown its essential functionality in robotic applications such as manipulation, while its simulation is still under exploration. This thesis contributes an example-based simulation model for GelSight [121], a dense optical tactile sensor and its applications in robotic perception and manipulation with sim-to-real transfer. First, we propose Taxim [93], a realistic and efficient simulation model for a vision-based tactile sensor, GelSight [121] which measures the contact geometries from images and forces from marker motions: we simulate the optical response to the deformation of contact by mapping the contact geometries to pixel intensity sampled by the embedded camera. We also simulate the surface markers’ motion caused by the surface stretch of the elastomer under contact. To the best of our knowledge, our simulation framework is the first to incorporate marker motion field simulation that derives from elastomer deformation together with the optical simulation, creating a comprehensive and computationally efficient tactile simulation framework. Second, we present ObjectFolder 2.0 [37], a large-scale multisensory dataset of common household objects in the form of implicit neural representations from vision, audio and touch where touch representation is learned from virtual objects based on Taxim simulation model. We show that models learned from simulation in our dataset successfully transfer to their real-world counterparts in three perception tasks: object scale estimation, contact localization and shape-reconstruction. In the end, we integrate simulation of robot dynamics and Taxim simulation for vision-based tactile sensors by modeling the physics of contact. This contact model uses simulated contact forces at the robot’s end-effector to inform the generation of realistic tactile outputs. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system on a sim-to-real grasp stability prediction task on various objects. Experiments reveal the potential of applying our simulation framework on more complicated manipulation tasks.
Novelty Detection via Robust Variational Autoencoding

We propose a new method for novelty detection that can tolerate nontrivial corruption of the training points. Previous works assumed either no or very low corruption. Our method trains a robust variational autoencoder (VAE), which aims to generate a model for the uncorrupted training points. To gain robustness to corruption, we incorporate three changes to the common VAE: 1. Modeling the latent distribution as a mixture of Gaussian inliers and outliers, while using only the inlier component when testing; 2. Applying the Wasserstein-1 metric for regularization, instead of Kullback-Leibler divergence; and 3. Using a least absolute deviation error for reconstruction, which is equivalent to assuming a heavy-tailed likelihood. We illustrate state-of-the-art results on standard benchmark datasets for novelty detection.
Formation, évolution et environnement des binaires X de grande masse

Les binaires X de grande masse (HMXBs pour High-Mass X-ray Binaries en anglais), constituees d'un objet compact (etoile a neutrons ou trou noir) orbitant autour d'une etoile massive, ont un interet fondamental dans l'etude des processus d'accretion/ejection autour d'un objet compact. Par ailleurs, des etudes observationnelles recentes prouvent qu'une majorite d'etoiles massives vivent en couple et connaissent des transferts de matiere au cours de leur vie. De ce fait, comprendre l'evolution des HMXBs ainsi que leur interaction avec l'environnement proche permet de mieux cerner l'evolution des couples stellaires les plus massifs, possibles progeniteurs de sursauts gamma et emetteurs d'ondes gravitationnelles lors de leur coalescence. Plus largement, la connaissance de l'evolution des etoiles binaires massives en interaction est cruciale pour caracteriser correctement les galaxies lointaines. Comment ces sources evoluent-elles ? Ou sont-elles situees dans la Galaxie ? Quelles sont leurs proprietes principales ? Quelle est l'influence de leur environnement proche ? Quel est leur impact sur le milieu interstellaire? Cette these vise a apporter des elements de reponse a ces questions, en adoptant deux approches complementaires : d'une part une etude statistique de la population Galactique de binaires X de grande masse et d'autre part une etude multi-longueurs d'onde de sources prises individuellement.
Managing Consistency and Consensus in Group Decision-Making with Incomplete Fuzzy Preference Relations

Group decision-making is a field of decision theory that has many strengths and benefits. It can solve and simplify the most complex and hard decision problems. In addition, it helps decision-makers know more about the problem under study and their preferences. Group decision-making is much harder and complex than individual decision-making since group members may have different preferences regarding the alternatives, making it difficult to reach a consensus. In this thesis, we deal with three interrelated problems that decision-makers encounter during the process of arriving at a final decision. Our work addresses decision-making using preference relations. The first problem deals with incomplete reciprocal preference relations, where some of the preference degrees are missing. Ideally, the group members are able to provide preferences for all the alternatives, but sometimes they might not be able to discriminate between some of the alternatives, leading to missing values. Two methods are proposed to handle this problem. The first is based on a system of equations and the second relies on goal programming to estimate the missing information. The former is suitable to complete any incomplete preference relation with at least
Self-collimation Mach–Zehnder interferometer based polarization-independent beam splitter

Abstract. A polarization-independent beam splitter (PIBS) based on self-collimation Mach–Zehnder interferometer (SMZI) in a hole-type silicon photonic crystal (PC) is proposed and numerically demonstrated. Utilizing polarization dependence of the transmission spectra of the SMZI and polarization transmission matching method, the SMZI can work as a PIBS by selecting appropriate path length difference in the structure. For a certain operating frequency, the PIBS has the same splitting ratio for both transverse-electric mode and transverse-magnetic mode. In this paper, the PIBS with splitting ratios of 1∶1 and 1∶2 is designed and numerically demonstrated, respectively. For the operating wavelength of 1550 nm, the sizes of the PIBS are only 19.7 μm×19.7 μm. With its small dimensions, simple structure, and silicon-based material, this PIBS may have practical applications in photonic-integrated circuits.
Hyper-spectral NIR and MIR data and optimal wavebands for detecting of apple trees diseases

Plant diseases can lead to dramatic losses in yield and quality of food, becoming a problem of high priority for farmers. Apple scab, moniliasis, and powdery mildew are the most significant apple tree diseases worldwide and may cause between 50% and 60% in yield losses annually; they are controlled by fungicide use with huge financial and time expenses. This research proposes a modern approach for analyzing the spectral data in Near-Infrared and Mid-Infrared ranges of the apple tree diseases at different stages. Using the obtained spectra, we found optimal spectral bands for detecting particular disease and discriminating it from other diseases and healthy trees. The proposed instrument will provide farmers with accurate, real-time information on different stages of apple tree diseases, enabling more effective timing, and selecting the fungicide application, resulting in better control and increasing yield. The obtained dataset, as well as scripts in Matlab for processing data and finding optimal spectral bands, are available via the link: this https URL
IDENTIFICATION OF CANCER STEM CELLS IN ORAL SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA USING CRIPTO-1.

Yasmine Alaa El-Din 1 , Amina Fouad Farag 1 and Nadia Fathy Hassabou 2 . 1. Assistant Lecturer, Oral Pathology Department, Faculty of Dentistry, October 6 University, Egypt. 2. Lecturer, Oral Pathology Department, Faculty of Dentistry, October 6 University, Egypt. Manuscript Info Abstract . Manuscript History
On the structure of quantum Markov semigroups of weak coupling limit type

We discuss some recent results on the structure of quantum Markov semigroups of weak coupling limit type and their stationary states. In particular, we identify the minimal central projection in the fixed point algebra where they act in a trivial way and show, when they admit a single Bohr frequency, that all invariant states are convex combinations of equilibrium states and arbitrary states supported in the above minimal central projection.
Epidemiology of Peptic Ulcer Disease: Endoscopic Results of a Systematic Investigation in Iran

BACKGROUND Peptic ulcer disease is a multifactorial health problem affecting almost all populations worldwide. Large scale population-based studies are crucial to understanding its scope and specifications in various nations. We aimed to explore environmental risk factors of peptic ulcer disease in the first population based study in Ardabil, Northwest Iran. METHODS This study was a part of a larger survey on upper gastrointestinal tract health conducted in Ardabil and Meshkinshahr with a total catchment area population of 600,000 persons during 2000-01. Using a random sampling proportional to place of residence, 1122 persons aged 40 or elder were selected. 1011 (90.1%) accepted participation and underwent a comprehensive medical examination and a systematic upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. Point prevalence of peptic ulcers was correlated to various life style risk factors. RESULTS Gastric and duodenal ulcers were identified in 33 (3.26%) and 50 (4.94%) participants, making an overall prevalence of 8.20%. Based on multivariable logistic regression analyses, H.pylori infection (OR 3.1, 95% CI: 2.1-4.7), Smoking (OR 1.8, 95% CI: 1.1-6.8), and chronic intake of NSAIDs (OR 2.8, 95% CI: 1.3-4.4) were main risk factors of gastric ulcer. For duodenal ulcer, in addition to H.pylori infection (OR 5.6, 95% CI: 1.9-8.8) and Smoking (OR 2.3, 95% CI: 1.4-6.5), male gender (OR 3.6, 95% CI: 1.2-5.8) and living in an urban area (OR 1.9, 95% CI: 1.1-5.2) were among significant risk factors. CONCLUSION This is the first population-based endoscopic study in North West of Iran reporting accurate point prevalence of peptic ulcer disease. The rate of 3.3% for gastric ulcer and 4.9% for duodenal ulcers are substantially lower than the estimates reported in Asian population-based endoscopic studies but higher than European reports.
Negative eigenvalues of the Y-type chain of weakly coupled ball resonators

Spectral properties of a system are strongly associated with its geometry. The spectral problem for the Y-bent chain of weakly-coupled ball resonators is investigated. The Y-bent system can be described as a central ball linking three chains consisting of balls of the same radius. There is a -coupling condition with parameter at every contact point. Specifically, it is assumed that the axis passing through the center of each ball lies in the same plane and the centers of balls that are the closest to the central ball form an equilateral triangle. The transfer-matrix approach and the theory of extensions are employed to solve the spectral problem for this system. It is shown that such system with a certain value of parameter has at most one negative eigenvalue in the case of -coupling in contact points.
Central European Journal of Biology

Bevacizumab cured age-related macular degeneration (AMD) via down-regulate TLR2 pathway Abbreviations AMD-Age-related macular degeneration RPE-Retinal pigment epithelium TLR2-The mammalian toll like receptor 2 P3C-Pam3CSK4
Epitaxial superconducting GdBa2Cu3O7−δ/Gd2O3 nanocomposite thin films from advanced low-fluorine solutions

We have employed the CSD method to synthesize GdBCO and GdBCO–Gd2O3 nanocomposite 250–300 nm thin films. For this we have designed a new low-fluorine solution never used before in the synthesis of GdBCO thin films that allows us to reduce the HF release by 80% and increase the reproducibility of the pyrolysis process. The growth of these thin films required a new thermal process to be designed, which we refer to as ‘flash-heating’, where the heating rate is extremely fast (∼600 °C min−1). The structure and the superconducting properties of the pristine GdBCO films are excellent, showing a (00 l) epitaxial orientation of the GdBCO grains and Tc values that reach 92.8 K, which means an enhancement of more than 1 K with respect to standard YBCO films. The calculated Jc inside the grains ( J c G ) also presents remarkable values: J c G (5 K) ∼ 40 MA cm−2 and J c G (77 K) ∼ 3.3 MA cm−2. Finally, the GdBCO–Gd2O3 nanocomposites films, with a 20% mol of Gd2O3, exhibit superior superconducting properties and pinning performances with respect to GdBCO pristine films.
Commutative rings in which zero-components of essential primes are essential

For a prime ideal P of a commutative ring A with identity, we denote (as usual) by OP its zero-component; that is, the set of members of P that are annihilated by nonmembers of P. We study rings in which OP is an essential ideal, whenever P is an essential prime ideal. We characterize them in terms of the lattices (which are, in fact, complete Heyting algebras) of their radical ideals. We prove that the classical ring of quotients of any ring of this kind is itself of this kind. We show that direct products of rings of this kind are themselves of this kind. We observe that the ring of real-valued continuous functions on a Tychonoff space is of this kind precisely when the underlying set of the space is infinite. Replacing OP with the pure part of P, we obtain a formally stronger variant which is still characterizable in terms of the lattices of radical ideals.
Optical 3D visualization under inclement weather conditions

In this paper, we propose an optical three-dimensional (3D) visualization under inclement weather conditions. These conditions include fog and night environments. For visualization under fog, we assume that fog is the unknown scattering media so that we use peplography technique which estimates the scattering media by Gaussian random process and detects ballistic photons from the scattering media by photon counting imaging. In addition, we use photon counting imaging with Bayesian estimation and adaptive statistical parameters for night vision. In this method, priori information of the scene can be assumed as Gamma distribution for calculation of posteriori distribution and adaptive statistical parameters can be calculated from the reconstructed 3D images. To obtain 3D information under inclement weather conditions, we use a passive 3D imaging technique such as integral imaging and computational reconstruction algorithm with 3D point cloud. Finally, we optimize these algorithms for real-time process and wearable devices. To support our proposed method, we implement preliminary experiments.
Affective Brain-Computer Interfaces: A Tutorial to Choose Performance Measuring Metric

Affective brain-computer interfaces are a relatively new area of research in affective computing. Estimation of affective states can improve human-computer interaction as well as improve the care of people with severe disabilities. To assess the effectiveness of EEG recordings in recognizing affective state, here we used data collected in our lab as well as the publicly available DEAP database. We also reviewed the articles that used the DEAP database and found that a significant number of articles did not consider the presence of the class imbalance in the DEAP. Failing to consider class imbalance creates misleading results. Further, ignoring class imbalance makes the comparing results between studies impossible, since different datasets will have different class imbalances. Class imbalance also shifts the chance level, hence it is vital to consider class bias while determining if the results are above chance. To properly account the effect of class imbalance, we suggest the use of balanced accuracy as a performance metric and its posterior distribution for computing credible intervals. For classification, we used features mentioned in the literature and additionally theta beta-1 ratio. Results from DEAP and our data suggest that the beta band power, theta band power, and theta beta-1 ratio are better feature sets for classifying valence, arousal, and dominance, respectively.
ICIF: Image fusion via information clustering and image features

Image fusion technology is employed to integrate images collected by utilizing different types of sensors into the same image to generate high-definition images and extract more comprehensive information. However, all available techniques derive the features of the images by utilizing each sensor separately, resulting in poorly correlated image features when different types of sensors are utilized during the fusion process. The fusion strategy to make up for the differences between features alone is an important reason for the poor clarity of fusion results. Therefore, this paper proposes a fusion method via information clustering and image features (ICIF). First, the weighted median filter algorithm is adopted in the spatial domain to realize the clustering of images, which uses the texture features of an infrared image as the weight to influence the clustering results of the visible light image. Then, the image is decomposed into the base layer, bright detail layer, and dark detail layer, which improves the correlations between the layers after conducting the decomposition of a source graph. Finally, the characteristics of the images collected by utilizing sensors and feature information between the image layers are used as the weight reference of the fusion strategy. Hence, the fusion images are reconstructed according to the principle of extended texture details. Experiments on public datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed strategy over state-of-the-art methods. The proposed ICIF highlighted targets and abundant details as well. Moreover, we also generalize the proposed ICIF to fuse images with different sensors, e.g., medical images and multi-focus images.
Effects of Antidepressant Medication on Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor Concentration and Neuroplasticity in Depression: A Review of Preclinical and Clinical Studies

Depression is the most prevalent and debilitating disease with great impact on societies. Evidence suggests Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) plays an important role in pathophysiology of depression. Depression is associated with altered synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis. BDNF is the main regulatory protein that affects neuronal plasticity in the hippocampus. A wealth of evidence shows decreased levels of BDNF in depressed patients. Important literature demonstrated that BDNF-TrkB signaling plays a key role in therapeutic action of antidepressants. Numerous studies have reported anti-depressant effects on serum/plasma levels of BDNF and neuroplasticity which may be related to improvement of depressive symptoms. Most of the evidence suggested increased levels of BDNF after antidepressant treatment. This review will summarize recent findings on the association between BDNF, neuroplasticity, and antidepressant response in depression. Also, we will review recent studies that evaluate the association between postpartum depression as a subtype of depression and BDNF levels in postpartum women.
Guidelines for the management of ulcerative colitis. Recommendations of the Working Group of the Polish National Consultant in Gastroenterology and the Polish Society of Gastroenterology

1Katedra i Klinika Gastroenterologii, Żywienia Czlowieka i Chorob Wewnetrznych Uniwersytetu Medycznego w Poznaniu 2Klinika Chorob Wewnetrznych i Gastroenterologii z Pododdzialem Leczenia Nieswoistych Chorob Zapalnych Jelit Centralnego Szpitala Klinicznego MSW w Warszawie 3Klinika Gastroenterologii i Hepatologii Centrum Medycznego Ksztalcenia Podyplomowego, Centrum Onkologii – Instytut im. Marii Sklodowskiej-Curie w Warszawie 4Klinika Chirurgii Gastroenterologicznej i Transplantologii Centralnego Szpitala Klinicznego MSW w Warszawie 5Oddzial Gastroenterologii i Onkologii Przewodu Pokarmowego Wojewodzkiego Szpitala Specjalistycznego im. św. Barbary w Sosnowcu 6Zaklad Pielegniarstwa Gastroenterologicznego Collegium Medicum w Bydgoszczy, Centrum Endoskopii Zabiegowej Szpitala Uniwersyteckiego nr 2 w Bydgoszczy Uniwersytetu Mikolaja Kopernika w Toruniu 7Klinika Chorob Przewodu Pokarmowego Uniwersytetu Medycznego w Łodzi 8Katedra i Klinika Gastroenterologii z Pracownią Endoskopową Uniwersytetu Medycznego w Lublinie
Inverse relationship between Fusobacterium nucleatum amount and tumor CD274 (PD‐L1) expression in colorectal carcinoma

The CD274 (programmed cell death 1 ligand 1, PD‐L1)/PDCD1 (programmed cell death 1, PD‐1) immune checkpoint axis is known to regulate the antitumor immune response. Evidence also supports an immunosuppressive effect of Fusobacterium nucleatum. We hypothesised that tumor CD274 overexpression might be inversely associated with abundance of F. nucleatum in colorectal carcinoma.