LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Independent prospective validation of a predictive test for risk of radiation induced fibrosis based on the gene expression pattern in fibroblasts irradiated in vitro.

PURPOSE
In a previously published study, we established a predictive test for the risk of radiation-induced fibrosis based on the gene expression pattern in cultured fibroblast irradiated in vitro. The present study was conducted to seek an independent prospective validation of the predictive test in a cohort of patients given curative radiotherapy for head and neck cancer.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study cohort comprised 160 consecutive head and neck cancer patients given curative radiotherapy between 2000 and 2004. The patients were treated according to the DAHANCA protocols. The patients were scored for subcutaneous fibrosis as part of routine follow up. Fibroblast culture was established from skin biopsies. The fibroblasts were irradiated in vitro using a fractionation scheme of 3 times 3.5 Gy. The expression of 9 genes was assessed before and after irradiation of the cells using real time PCR.


RESULTS
Based on the radiation-induced expression of the assessed genes, the material was divided into 136 patients having the 'sensitive expression profile' and 24 patients having the 'resistant expression profile'. Within the subset of patients with the 'sensitive profile', the cumulative risk of severe fibrosis was 34% at 9 years (Kaplan-Meier) whereas no patients with the 'resistant profile' developed severe fibrosis (p = 0.035).


CONCLUSION
Our study provided an independent prospective validation of the previously established predictive test for radiation induced fibrosis. In agreement with our initial findings, the classifier was able to identify a smaller subset of patients that seems to be rather radioresistant and could therefore potentially be considered for dose escalation.
Optimized Image Steganography using Discrete Wavelet Transform ( DWT )

-Steganography is a term used for covered writing. Steganography can be applied on different file formats, such as audio, video, text, image etc. In image steganography, data in the form of image is hidden under some image by using transformations such as ztransformation, integer wavelet transformation, DWT etc and then sent to the destination. At the destination, the data is extracted from the cover image using the inverse transformation. This paper presents a new approach for image steganography using DWT. The cover image is divided into higher and lower frequency sub-bands and data is embedded into higher frequency sub-bands. Arnold Transformation is used to increase the security. The proposed approach is implemented in MATLAB 7.0 and evaluated on the basis of PSNR, capacity and correlation. The proposed approach results in high capacity image steganography as compared to existing approaches. Keywords-Image Steganography, PSNR, Discrete Wavelet Transform.
Hybrid convolutional neural networks for articulatory and acoustic information based speech recognition

Studies have shown that articulatory information helps model speech variability and, consequently, improves speech recognition performance. But learning speaker-invariant articulatory models is challenging, as speaker-specific signatures in both the articulatory and acoustic space increase complexity of speech-to-articulatory mapping, which is already an ill-posed problem due to its inherent nonlinearity and non-unique nature. This work explores using deep neural networks (DNNs) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for mapping speech data into its corresponding articulatory space. Our speech-inversion results indicate that the CNN models perform better than their DNN counterparts. In addition, we use these inverse-models to generate articulatory information from speech for two separate speech recognition tasks: the WSJ1 and Aurora-4 continuous speech recognition tasks. This work proposes a hybrid convolutional neural network (HCNN), where two parallel layers are used to jointly model the acoustic and articulatory spaces, and the decisions from the parallel layers are fused at the output context-dependent (CD) state level. The acoustic model performs time-frequency convolution on filterbankenergy-level features, whereas the articulatory model performs time convolution on the articulatory features. The performance of the proposed architecture is compared to that of the CNNand DNN-based systems using gammatone filterbank energies as acoustic features, and the results indicate that the HCNN-based model demonstrates lower word error rates compared to the CNN/DNN baseline systems.
Transfer factors: identification of conserved sequences in transfer factor molecules.

BACKGROUND
Transfer factors are small proteins that "transfer" the ability to express cell-mediated immunity from immune donors to non-immune recipients. We developed a process for purifying specific transfer factors to apparent homogeneity. This allowed us to separate individual transfer factors from mixtures containing several transfer factors and to demonstrate the antigen-specificity of transfer factors. Transfer factors have been shown to be an effective means for correction of deficient cellular immunity in patients with opportunistic infections, such as candidiasis or recurrent Herpes simplex and to provide prophylactic immunity against varicella-zoster in patients with acute leukemia.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
Transfer factors of bovine and murine origin were purified by affinity chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography. Cyanogen bromide digests were sequenced. The properties of an apparently conserved sequence on expression of delayed-type hypersensitivity by transfer factor recipients were assessed.


RESULTS
A novel amino acid sequence, LLYAQDL/VEDN, was identified in each of seven transfer factor preparations. These peptides would not transfer expression of delayed-type hypersensitivity to recipients, which indicates that they are not sufficient for expression of the specificity or immunological properties of native transfer factors. However, administration of the peptides to recipients of native transfer factors blocked expression of delayed-type hypersensitivity by the recipients. The peptides were not immunosuppressive.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that the peptides may represent the portion of transfer factors that binds to the "target cells" for transfer factors. Identification of these cells will be helpful in defining the mechanisms of action of transfer factors.
OpenNMT: Open-source Toolkit for Neural Machine Translation

We describe an open-source toolkit for neural machine translation (NMT). The toolkit prioritizes efficiency, modularity, and extensibility with the goal of supporting NMT research into model architectures, feature representations, and source modalities, while maintaining competitive performance and reasonable training requirements. The toolkit consists of modeling and translation support, as well as detailed pedagogical documentation about the underlying techniques.
Household Ventilation May Reduce Effects of Indoor Air Pollutants for Prevention of Lung Cancer: A Case-Control Study in a Chinese Population

BACKGROUND
Although the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified various indoor air pollutants as carcinogenic to humans, few studies evaluated the role of household ventilation in reducing the impact of indoor air pollutants on lung cancer risk.


OBJECTIVES
To explore the association between household ventilation and lung cancer.


METHODS
A population-based case-control study was conducted in a Chinese population from 2003 to 2010. Epidemiologic and household ventilation data were collected using a standardized questionnaire. Unconditional logistic regression was employed to estimate adjusted odds ratios (ORadj) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI).


RESULTS
Among 1,424 lung cancer cases and 4,543 healthy controls, inverse associations were observed for good ventilation in the kitchen (ORadj = 0.86, 95% CI: 0.75, 0.98), bedroom (ORadj = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.79, 1.03), and both kitchen and bedroom (ORadj = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.75, 1.00). Stratified analyses showed lung cancer inversely associated with good ventilation among active smokers (ORadj = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.72, 1.00), secondhand smokers at home (ORadj = 0.77, 95% CI: 0.63, 0.94), and those exposed to high-temperature cooking oil fumes (ORadj = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.68, 0.99). Additive interactions were found between household ventilation and secondhand smoke at home as well as number of household pollutant sources.


CONCLUSIONS
A protective association was observed between good ventilation of households and lung cancer, most likely through the reduction of exposure to indoor air pollutants, indicating ventilation may serve as one of the preventive measures for lung cancer, in addition to tobacco cessation.
Multiple risk factors related to familial predisposition to anterior cruciate ligament injury: fraternal twin sisters with anterior cruciate ligament ruptures.

OBJECTIVE
A multifactorial combination of predictors may increase anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury risk in athletes. The objective of this twin study was to examine these risk factors to identify commonalities in risk factors that predisposed female fraternal twins to ACL injury.


METHODS
Female twins in high-risk sports were prospectively measured prior to an injury for neuromuscular control using three-dimensional motion analysis during landing, hamstrings and quadriceps muscular strength on a dynamometer and joint laxity using a modified Beighton-Horan index and a Compu-KT arthrometer. Intraoperative measures of femoral intercondylar notch width were recorded during ACL reconstruction.


RESULTS
Abduction angles were increased at one knee in both of the twin sister athletes relative to uninjured controls at initial contact and at maximum displacement during landing. The twin female athletes that went on to ACL injury also demonstrated decreased peak knee flexion motion at both knees than uninjured females during landing. The twin athletes also had increased joint laxity and decreased hamstrings to quadriceps (H/Q) torque ratios compared to controls. Femoral intercondylar notch widths were also below the control mean in the twin siblings.


CONCLUSIONS
Prescreened mature female twins that subsequently experienced ACL injury demonstrated multiple potential risk factors including: increased knee abduction angles, decreased knee flexion angles, increased general joint laxity, decreased H/Q ratios and femoral intercondylar notch width.
Inhibition of the Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK and RET kinase pathways with the combination of the multikinase inhibitor sorafenib and the farnesyltransferase inhibitor tipifarnib in medullary and differentiated thyroid malignancies.

PURPOSE
Ras/Raf/MAPK kinase/ERK and rearranged in transformation (RET) kinase pathways are important in thyroid cancer. We tested sorafenib, a B-Raf, RET, and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor kinase inhibitor, combined with tipifarnib, a farnesyltransferase inhibitor that inactivates Ras and other farnesylated proteins.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
We treated 35 patients with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) and medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) in a phase I trial. Sorafenib and tipifarnib were given for 21 d with 7 d rest in each 28-d cycle.


RESULTS
We enrolled 22 patients with metastatic DTC (16 papillary, five follicular, and one poorly differentiated) and 13 patients with MTC, of whom 15 with DTC and 10 with MTC reached first restaging. When tissue was available, eight of 15 DTC patients (53%) had B-Raf mutations; eight of 13 MTC (61.5%) patients had RET mutations. MTC partial response rate was 38% (five of 13) (duration = 9+, 12, 13, 16+, and 34+ months), stable disease of at least 6 months was 31% (four of 13). The DTC partial response rate was 4.5% (one of 22), and stable disease of at least 6 months was 36% (eight of 22). Median progression-free survival for all 35 patients was 18 months (95% confidence interval, 14.6 to not reached months). Median overall survival has not been reached, with a median follow-up of 24 months with 80% overall survival. Grade 1-2 toxicities were mainly rash, fatigue, and diarrhea. The most common grade 3-4 toxicities were rash, rise in amylase/lipase, and fatigue.


CONCLUSIONS
Inhibiting the Ras/Raf/MAPK kinase/ERK and RET kinase pathways with sorafenib and tipifarnib is well tolerated and active against thyroid cancer.
Exploring feedback and student characteristics relevant for personalizing feedback strategies

Personalized tutoring feedback is a powerful method that expert human tutors apply when helping students to optimize their learning. Thus, research on tutoring feedback strategies tailoring feedback according to important factors of the learning process has been recognized as a promising issue in the field of computer-based adaptive educational technologies. Our paper seeks to contribute to this area of research by addressing the following aspects: First, to investigate how students’ gender, prior knowledge, and motivational characteristics relate to learning outcomes (knowledge gain and changes in motivation). Second, to investigate the impact of these student characteristics on how tutoring feedback strategies varying in content (procedural vs. conceptual) and specificity (concise hints vs. elaborated explanations) of tutoring feedback messages affect students’ learning and motivation. Third, to explore the influence of the feedback parameters and student characteristics on students’ immediate postfeedback behaviour (skipping vs. trying to accomplish a task, and failing vs. succeeding in providing a correct answer). To address these issues, detailed log-file analyses of an experimental study have been conducted. In this study, 124 sixth and seventh graders have been exposed to various tutoring feedback strategies while working on multi-trial error correction tasks in the domain of fraction arithmetic. The web-based intelligent learning environment ActiveMath was used to present the fraction tasks and trace students’ progress and activities. The results reveal that gender is an important factor for feedback efficiency: Male students achieve significantly lower knowledge gains than female students under all tutoring feedback conditions (particularly, under feedback strategies starting with a conceptual hint). Moreover, perceived competence declines from preto post-test significantly more for boys than for girls. Yet, the decline in perceived competence is not accompanied by a decline in intrinsic motivation, which, instead, increases significantly from preto post-test. With regard to the post-feedback behaviour, the results indicate that students skip further attempts more frequently after conceptual than after procedural feedback messages. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Independent multicenter study of Riata and Riata ST implantable cardioverter-defibrillator leads.

BACKGROUND
Riata and Riata ST leads (St Jude Medical, Sylmar, CA) are prone to failure. There are no independent multicenter reports regarding Riata or Riata ST lead performance.


OBJECTIVE
To conduct a retrospective multicenter study of Riata and Riata ST leads that were implanted and followed at 7 centers.


METHODS
The study included adults who received St Jude Medical Riata or Riata ST leads. Data for Quattro Secure leads were obtained from an earlier study.


RESULTS
From 2002 to 2010, 1081 patients received a Riata (n = 774) or Riata ST (n = 307) lead. Follow-up was longer for Riata than Riata ST leads (4.2 ± 2.4 years vs 3.3 ± 1.7 years; P<.0001). During the study, 67 leads failed (6.2%), including 62 of 774 Riata (8.0%) and 5 of 307 Riata ST (1.6%) leads. Forty-seven of 67 lead failures (70.1%) were caused by electrical malfunction, and 20 lead failures (29.9%) were due to externalized conductors (ECs) that were electrically intact. Of 110 leads examined fluoroscopically, ECs were found in 26 of 81 Riata (32%) and 1 of 29 Riata ST (3.4%) leads. Of 26 Riata leads with ECs, 7 (27%) were malfunctioning. Riata leads had lower overall and malfunction free survival compared to Quattro leads (P<.0001), while Riata ST lead survival was not different (P = .422).


CONCLUSIONS
The survival of Riata (but not Riata ST) leads was lower than Quattro leads; however, Riata ST leads had significantly shorter follow-up than Riata leads. ECs were common in Riata leads, and more than a quarter of Riata leads that had ECs were malfunctioning. Our observations suggest that systematic fluoroscopic examination of patients with Riata leads is appropriate.
Truth or consequences: the potential implications of short-term cosmetic orthodontics for general dental practitioners

Until recently, cosmetic dentistry has focused on the use of traditional restorative techniques, bleaching and the so-called facial rejuvenators such as injectable dermal fillers and Botox. More latterly, the short-term use of aesthetic removable aligners and ceramic fixed appliance brackets have been promoted for use by general dental practitioners as a means of minimising the invasive amount of restorative dental treatment that would otherwise be required to achieve the desired degree of aesthetic improvement. Nevertheless, there are inherent risks and complications associated with short-term orthodontic treatments that are deliberately limited in their outcomes and these, together with the potential ramifications for the long-term dental health of patients, are discussed.
The effectiveness of antioxidant vitamins C and E in reducing myocardial infarct size in patients subjected to percutaneous coronary angioplasty (PREVEC Trial): study protocol for a pilot randomized double-blind controlled trial

BACKGROUND
Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is the leading cause of mortality worldwide. Oxidative stress has been involved in the ischemia-reperfusion injury in AMI. It has been suggested that reperfusion accounts for up to 50% of the final size of a myocardial infarct, a part of the damage likely to be prevented.Therefore, we propose that antioxidant reinforcement through vitamins C and E supplementation should protect against the ischemia-reperfusion damage, thus decreasing infarct size.The PREVEC Trial (Prevention of reperfusion damage associated with percutaneous coronary angioplasty following acute myocardial infarction) seeks to evaluate whether antioxidant vitamins C and E reduce infarct size in patients subjected to percutaneous coronary angioplasty after AMI.


METHODS/DESIGN
This is a randomized, 1:1, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.The study takes place at two centers in Chile: University of Chile Clinical Hospital and San Borja Arriarán Clinical Hospital.The subjects will be 134 adults with acute myocardial infarction with indication for percutaneous coronary angioplasty.This intervention is being performed as a pilot study, involving high-dose vitamin C infusion plus oral administration of vitamin E (Vitamin-treatment group) or placebo (Control group) during the angioplasty procedure. Afterward, the Vitamin-treatment group receives oral doses of vitamins C and E, and the Control group receives placebo for 84 days after coronary angioplasty.Primary outcome is infarct size, assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR), measured 6 and 84 days after coronary angioplasty.Secondary outcomes are ejection fraction, measured 6 and 84 days after coronary angioplasty with CMR, and biomarkers for oxidative stress, antioxidant status, heart damage, and inflammation, which will be measured at baseline, at the onset of reperfusion, 6 to 8 hours after revascularization, and at hospital discharge.


DISCUSSION
The ischemia-reperfusion event occurring during angioplasty is known to increase myocardial infarct size. The cardioprotective benefits of high doses of vitamin C combined with vitamin E have not been fully explored. The PREVEC Trial seeks to determine the suitability of the therapeutic use of vitamins C and E against the reperfusion damage produced during angioplasty.Patient recruitment opened in February 2013. The trial is scheduled to end in March 2016.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
ISRCTN56034553.
Global P, PP, and PKP wave microseisms observed from distant storms

[1] Microseisms are the continuous background vibrations of the Earth observed between earthquakes. Most microseism studies have focused on low frequency energy (0.05–0.5 Hz) propagating as surface waves, but in the microseism spectrum there is also energy that propagates as body waves (P-waves). Using array analysis on southern California stations we show that these body waves are generated in the ocean from distant storms and propagate deep within the Earth’s mantle and core as P, PP and PKP phases. Comparisons with ocean wave hindcast data identify several distinct source regions in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Analyses of these body waves demonstrate that microseisms often have a strong P-wave component originating from distant locations. Citation: Gerstoft, P., P. M. Shearer, N. Harmon, and J. Zhang (2008), Global P, PP, and PKP wave microseisms observed from distant storms, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L23306, doi:10.1029/2008GL036111.
Wireless sensor network system using Raspberry Pi and zigbee for environmental monitoring applications

With over a decade of intensive research and development, wireless sensor network (WSN) technology has been emerging as a feasible solution to many innovative applications. In this paper, we describe a wireless sensor network system that we have developed using open-source hardware platforms, Raspberry Pi and zigbee. The system is low-cost, low power consuming and highly scalable both in terms of the type of sensors and the number of sensor nodes, which makes it well suited for a wide variety of applications related to environmental monitoring. Raspberry Pi is cheap, flexible, fully customizable and programmable small computer embedded linux board and abilities of its usage as WSN node and sensor node. Raspberry Pi works as a base station which connects the sensor nodes via zigbee protocol in the wireless sensor network and collects sensors data from different sensors, and supply multi-clients services including data display. The client can visit the base station remotely via (website) Ethernet or command console.
NPCs Vote! Changing Voter Reactions Over Time Using the Extreme AI Personality Engine

and on their differing feelings toward the politicians (in this case, across liking, trusting, and feeling affiliated with the candidates). After 16 test runs, the voters did indeed change their attitudes and feelings toward the candidates in different and yet generally realistic ways, and even changed their attitudes about other issues based on what a candidate extolled.
Grounding faulted feeder detection with fault resistance measurement in mining power systems

Many mining power systems have been operated with floating neutral or high resistance grounded. The earth fault current is no more than a few tens of amperes. Traditional earth fault detection methods based on zero sequence current have poor sensitivity in this case. For improvement, a fault detection scheme with fault current and fault resistance measurement is presented in the paper. It can detect high impedance grounding faults (HIGF). The scheme has been verified by EMTP simulation, and fault detection prototype has been developed and tested. Results show that the scheme has with high sensitivity and robustness.
Brief Application Description; Visual Data Mining: Recognizing Telephone Calling Fraud

Human pattern recognition skills are remarkable and in many situations far exceed the ability of automated mining algorithms. By building domain-specific interfaces that present information visually, we can combine human detection with machines' far greater computational capacity. We illustrate our ideas by describing a suite of visual interfaces we built for telephone fraud detection.