LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Circulating tumor DNA as a liquid biopsy for cancer.

BACKGROUND
Targeted therapies have markedly changed the treatment of cancer over the past 10 years. However, almost all tumors acquire resistance to systemic treatment as a result of tumor heterogeneity, clonal evolution, and selection. Although genotyping is the most currently used method for categorizing tumors for clinical decisions, tumor tissues provide only a snapshot, or are often difficult to obtain. To overcome these issues, methods are needed for a rapid, cost-effective, and noninvasive identification of biomarkers at various time points during the course of disease. Because cell-free circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is a potential surrogate for the entire tumor genome, the use of ctDNA as a liquid biopsy may help to obtain the genetic follow-up data that are urgently needed.


CONTENT
This review includes recent studies exploring the diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive potential of ctDNA as a liquid biopsy in cancer. In addition, it covers biological and technical aspects, including recent advances in the analytical sensitivity and accuracy of DNA analysis as well as hurdles that have to be overcome before implementation into clinical routine.


SUMMARY
Although the analysis of ctDNA is a promising area, and despite all efforts to develop suitable tools for a comprehensive analysis of tumor genomes from plasma DNA, the liquid biopsy is not yet routinely used as a clinical application. Harmonization of preanalytical and analytical procedures is needed to provide clinical standards to validate the liquid biopsy as a clinical biomarker in well-designed and sufficiently powered multicenter studies.
Privacy preservation for V2G networks in smart grid: A survey

Vehicle to grid (V2G) network is a crucial part of smart grid. An electric vehicle (EV) in a V2G network uses electricity instead of gasoline, and this benefits the environment and helps mitigate the energy crisis. By using its battery capacity, the vehicle can serve temporarily as a distributed energy storage system to mitigate peak load of the power grid. However, the two-way communication and power flows not only facilitate the functionality of V2G network, but they also facilitate attackers as well. Privacy is now a big obstacle in the way of the development of V2G networks. The privacy preservation problem in V2G networks could be more severe than in other parts of Smart Grid due to its e-mobility. In this paper, we will analyze and summarize privacy preservation approaches which achieve various privacy preservation goals. We will survey research works, based on existing privacy preservation techniques, which address various privacy preservation problems in V2G networks, including anonymous authentication, location privacy, identification privacy, concealed data aggregation, privacy-preserving billing and payment, and privacy-preserving data publication. These techniques include homomorphic encryption, blind signature, group signature, ring signature, third party anonymity, and anonymity networks. We will summarize solved problems and issues of these techniques, and introduce possible solutions for unsolved problems. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Energy Efficiency Like Your Momma Used to Make

The author muses on having artificially intelligent green buildings that would nag occupants with energy saving tips the way some parents of yesteryear nagged their childeren on the use of electricity in the home.
Pharmacokinetics of xylazine, 2,6-dimethylaniline, and tolazoline in tissues from yearling cattle and milk from mature dairy cows after sedation with xylazine hydrochloride and reversal with tolazoline hydrochloride.

Xylazine hydrochloride was administered i.m. at 0.35 mg/kg to 13 steers and 10 lactating dairy cows at Time 0. Ten minutes later, tolazoline hydrochloride was given i.v. at 4 mg/kg. Tissue and milk samples were analyzed using gas chromatography with nitrogen and phosphorous detection to determine concentrations of xylazine, 2,6-dimethylaniline (a toxic metabolite of xylazine), and tolazoline (at various intervals). Concentrations of xylazine and 2,6- dimethylaniline were below the limit of quantitation (10 microg/kg) by 72 hours in tissues and 12 hours in milk. The concentration of tolazoline was below 10 microg/kg by 96 hours in tissues and 48 hours in milk. Based on the results of these residue studies submitted by the sponsoring agency to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in New Zealand, withholding periods for both xylazine hydrochloride and tolazoline hydrochloride injection were established.
Perfectionism and Neuroticism: A Longitudinal Study of Specific Vulnerability and Diathesis-Stress Models

Perfectionism may act as a vulnerability factor for distress in response to negative life events. An important indication of the value of lower order vulnerability factors in psychological research is whether they provide incremental predictive validity beyond higher order traits such as neuroticism. Accordingly, the present longitudinal study evaluated perfectionism vulnerability models and compared these predictive models with a neuroticism diathesis-stress model in a group of first year medical students. Several dimensions of perfectionism (socially prescribed perfectionism, concern over mistakes and doubts about actions) interacted with negative life events to predict future distress symptoms but none of the interactions between perfectionism and life events provided incremental predictive validity in comparison to a neuroticism diathesis-stress model. No support was obtained for a perfectionism specific vulnerability hypothesis. The results of this study affirm the importance of incorporating measures of higher-order psychological vulnerabilities in studies seeking to demonstrate the predictive value of lower-order vulnerabilities.
Measurement Method and Empirical Research on the Sustainable Development Capability of a Regional Industrial System Based on Ecological Niche Theory in China

From the analytical view of a recycling economy, the regional system achieves the goal of sustainable development through improving resource utilization efficiency, reducing energy consumption and ameliorating the quality of water and air. The regional economic system’s potential for sustainable development is significantly influenced by regional industrial operational efficiency, which measures the cost of ecology, environment, energy and resources accompanying the economic growth. It is vital for national and regional governments to accelerate harmonious development between products of industrial department, consumption of energy and pollutants discharged. Under the guidance of ecological niche theory and recycling economy theory, the theoretical analysis on efficient relations between regional industrial growth, energy consumption, resources utilization and environmental carrying capacity has been carried out from horizontal and vertical respects. Industrial operational efficiency and the sensitivity coefficient in response to the change of every input and output index can be calculated and critical factors, which restrict sustainable development capability, can be found out so that quantitative references could be provided for administrative decisions. As for the measurement method, a super efficiency mixed data envelopment OPEN ACCESS Sustainability 2014, 6 8486 analysis model, which wipes off self-limited condition and either contains both meeting cone characteristic indexes or not, has been established and applied. Statistics from 1993 to 2012 in China are collected to carry out empirical research. On the basis of further analysis, an adjustment strategy can be constituted to improve the capability for sustainable development.
An undergraduate fuzzy logic control lab using a line following robot

Fuzzy logic controllers have gained popularity in the past few decades with highly successful implementation in many fields. Fuzzy logic enables designers to control complex systems more effectively than traditional methods. Teaching students fuzzy logic in a laboratory can be a time-consuming and an expensive task. This paper presents a low-cost educational microcontroller-based tool for fuzzy logic controlled line following mobile robot. The robot is used in the second year of undergraduate teaching in an elective course in the department of computer engineering of the Near East University. Hardware details of the robot and the software implementing the fuzzy logic control algorithm are given in the paper. 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20347
Towards a robust BCI: error potentials and online learning

Recent advances in the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have shown that BCIs have the potential to provide a powerful new channel of communication, completely independent of muscular and nervous systems. However, while there have been successful laboratory demonstrations, there are still issues that need to be addressed before BCIs can be used by nonexperts outside the laboratory. At IDIAP Research Institute, we have been investigating several areas that we believe will allow us to improve the robustness, flexibility, and reliability of BCIs. One area is recognition of cognitive error states, that is, identifying errors through the brain's reaction to mistakes. The production of these error potentials (ErrP) in reaction to an error made by the user is well established. We have extended this work by identifying a similar but distinct ErrP that is generated in response to an error made by the interface, (a misinterpretation of a command that the user has given). This ErrP can be satisfactorily identified in single trials and can be demonstrated to improve the theoretical performance of a BCI. A second area of research is online adaptation of the classifier. BCI signals change over time, both between sessions and within a single session, due to a number of factors. This means that a classifier trained on data from a previous session will probably not be optimal for a new session. In this paper, we present preliminary results from our investigations into supervised online learning that can be applied in the initial training phase. We also discuss the future direction of this research, including the combination of these two currently separate issues to create a potentially very powerful BCI.
Transformational Leadership, Creativity, and Organizational Innovation

This study proposes a model of the impact of transformational leadership both on followers' creativity at the individual level and on innovation at the organizational level. The model is tested on 163 R&D personnel and managers at 43 microand small-sized Turkish software development companies. The results suggest that transformational leadership has important effects on creativity at both the individual and organizational levels. At the individual level, the results of hierarchical linear modeling show that there is a positive relationship between transformational leadership and employees' creativity. In addition, transformational leadership influences employees' creativity through psychological empowerment. At the organizational level, the results of regression analysis reveal that transformational leadership positively associates with organizational innovation, which is measured with a market-oriented criterion developed specifically for developing countries and newly developing industries. The implications of the findings along with some potential practical applications are discussed. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Incomplete resection of focal cortical dysplasia is the main predictor of poor postsurgical outcome.

BACKGROUND
Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) is recognized as the major cause of focal intractable epilepsy in childhood. Various factors influencing postsurgical seizure outcome in pediatric patients with FCD have been reported.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze different variables in relation to seizure outcome in order to identify prognostic factors for selection of pediatric patients with FCD for epilepsy surgery.


METHODS
A cohort of 149 patients with histologically confirmed mild malformations of cortical development or FCD with at least 2 years of postoperative follow-up was retrospectively studied; 113 subjects had at least 5 years of postoperative follow-up. Twenty-eight clinical, EEG, MRI, neuropsychological, surgical, and histopathologic parameters were evaluated.


RESULTS
The only significant predictor of surgical success was completeness of surgical resection, defined as complete removal of the structural MRI lesion (if present) and the cortical region exhibiting prominent ictal and interictal abnormalities on intracranial EEG. Unfavorable surgical outcomes are mostly caused by overlap of dysplastic and eloquent cortical regions. There were nonsignificant trends toward better outcomes in patients with normal intelligence, after hemispherectomy and with FCD type II. Other factors such as age at seizure onset, duration of epilepsy, seizure frequency, associated pathologies including hippocampal sclerosis, extent of EEG and MRI abnormalities, as well as extent and localization of resections did not influence outcome. Twenty-five percent of patients changed Engel's class of seizure outcome after the second postoperative year.


CONCLUSIONS
The ability to define and fully excise the entire region of dysplastic cortex is the most powerful variable influencing outcome in pediatric patients with focal cortical dysplasia.
Empirical assessment of machine learning-based malware detectors for Android

To address the issue of malware detection through large sets of applications, researchers have recently started to investigate the capabilities of machine-learning techniques for proposing effective approaches. So far, several promising results were recorded in the literature, many approaches being assessed with what we call in the lab validation scenarios. This paper revisits the purpose of malware detection to discuss whether such in the lab validation scenarios provide reliable indications on the performance of malware detectors in real-world settings, aka in the wild. To this end, we have devised several Machine Learning classifiers that rely on a set of features built from applications’ CFGs. We use a sizeable dataset of over 50 000 Android applications collected from sources where state-of-the art approaches have selected their data. We show that, in the lab, our approach outperforms existing machine learning-based approaches. However, this high performance does not translate in high performance in the wild. The performance gap we observed—F-measures dropping from over 0.9 in the lab to below 0.1 in the wild—raises one important question: How do state-of-the-art approaches perform in the wild?
Trust Based Scheme for QoS Assurance in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

A mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) is a peer-to-peer wireless network where nodes can communicate with each other without the use of infrastructure such as access points or base stations. These networks are self-configuring, capable of self-directed operation and hastily deployable. Nodes cooperate to provide connectivity, operates without centralized administration. Nodes are itinerant, topology can be very dynamic and nodes must be able to relay traffic since communicating nodes might be out of range. The dynamic nature of MANET makes network open to attacks and unreliability. Routing is always the most significant part for any networks. Each node should not only work for itself, but should be cooperative with other nodes. Node misbehaviour due to selfish or malicious intention could significantly degrade the performance of MANET. The Qos parameters like PDR, throughput and delay are affected directly due to such misbehaving nodes. We focus on trust management framework, which is intended to cope with misbehaviour problem of node and increase the performance of MANETs. A trust-based system can be used to track this misbehaving of nodes, spot them and isolate them from routing and provide reliability. In this paper a Trust Based Reliable AODV [TBRAODV] protocol is presented which implements a trust value for each node. For every node trust value is calculated and based trust value nodes are allowed to participate in routing or else identified to become a misbehaving node. This enhances reliability in AODV routing and results in increase of PDR, decrease in delay and throughput is maintained. This work is implemented and simulated on NS-2. Based on simulation results, the proposed protocol provides more consistent and reliable data transfer compared with general AODV, if there are misbehaving nodes in the MANET.
Adrenal function and MC1R gene analysis in a prepubertal girl with generalized hyperpigmentation: case report

Generalized hyperpigmentation (GHPT) of the skin may occur as a primary defect of pigmentation or in combination with other variable manifestations. It is visible in a number of diseases such as Addison’s disease (AD), haemochromatosis, porphyria cutanea tarda, scleroderma and neurofibromatosis, but it can also be associated with malignancy and the use of chemotherapeutics or it can be related to acanthosis nigricans in insulin resistance. Skin pigmentation depends on the differences in the amount, type and distribution of melanin produced during melanogenesis in skin melanocytes [1] and remains under the genetic control of more than 120 genes [2]. The most important one is the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene [3] (OMIM ID: 155555) located on chromosome 16q24.3 and encoding for a 317-amino-acid G-protein coupled receptor. The MC1R receptor binds α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH) resulting in the activation of adenylyl cyclase, which produces cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). The increased cAMP concentration activates various intracellular molecular pathways, promotes melanin synthesis and increases the eumelanin to pheomelanin ratio [4]. MC1R receptor also binds ACTH, in this way contributing to the GHPT in AD. Upregulation of MC1R gene expression by UV radiation and α-MSH leads to enhancement of melanogenesis and melanin synthesis induction. Loss-of-function mutations in the MC1R gene are associated with fair skin, poor tanning, propensity to freckles and increased skin cancer risk due to a decrease in eumelanin synthesis and subsequently impaired protection against UV radiation [5-7]. To our knowledge, to date, no data are available considering gain-of-function mutations in the human MC1R gene which could lead to a constant activation of the MC1R receptor and subsequently cause GHPT. We present the case of a patient with a primary type of progressive GHPT in whom AD was suspected. An 11-year-old prepubertal girl with GHPT (Figures 1A-C) was born at term with normal birth weight and height and was first brought to our hospital at the age of 3 years with a suspicion of AD. She had a diffuse grey-brownish discoloration of the skin present since birth. Over the first few years of life she developed symmetrical hyperpigmentation most pronounced on her trunk and neck. Later, hyperpigmentation began to affect her hands and feet, and finally the whole body – sparing only the cheeks and finger tips. Her skin was very dry and atopic, and scars were not hyperCorresponding autor: Assoc. Prof. Marek Niedziela MD, PhD Department of Paediatric Endocrinology and Rheumatology Poznan University of Medical Sciences 27/33 Szpitalna St 60-572 Poznan, Poland Phone: +48 61 849 14 81 Fax: 48 61 848 02 91 E-mail: mniedzie@ump.edu.pl Letter to the Editor
Welfarism in Economic Domains

Abstract In economies with public goods, and agents with quasi-linear preferences, we give a characterization of the welfare egalitarian correspondence in terms of three axioms: Pareto optimality, symmetry, and solidarity. This last property requires that an increase in the willingness to pay for the public goods of some of the agents should not decrease the welfare of any of them. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D63; H41.
Predicting intraindividual changes in teacher burnout : The role of perceived school environment and motivational factors

Based on self-determination theory, this study proposes and tests a motivational model of intraindividual changes in teacher burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment). Participants were 806 French-Canadian teachers in public elementary and high schools. Results show that changes in teachers’ perceptions of classroom overload and students’ disruptive behavior are negatively related to changes in autonomous motivation, which in turn negatively predict changes in emotional exhaustion. Results also indicate that changes in teachers’ perceptions of students’ disruptive behaviors and school principal’s leadership behaviors are related to changes in self-efficacy, which in turn negatively predict changes in three burnout components. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Genetic Diversity of Cryptosporidium in Children in an Urban Informal Settlement of Nairobi, Kenya

INTRODUCTION
Globally Cryptosporidium and Giardia species are the most common non-bacterial causes of diarrhoea in children and HIV infected individuals, yet data on their role in paediatric diarrhoea in Kenya remains scant. This study investigated the occurrence of Cryptosporidium species, genotypes and subtypes in children, both hospitalized and living in an informal settlement in Nairobi.


METHODS
This was a prospective cross-sectional study in which faecal specimen positive for Cryptosporidium spp. by microscopy from HIV infected and uninfected children aged five years and below presenting with diarrhoea at selected outpatient clinics in Mukuru informal settlements, or admitted to the paediatric ward at the Mbagathi District Hospital were characterized. The analysis was done by Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) of the 18srRNA gene for species identification and PCR-sequencing of the 60 kDa glycoprotein (GP60) gene for subtyping.


RESULTS
C. hominis was the most common species of Cryptosporidium identified in125/151(82.8%) of the children. Other species identified were C. parvum 18/151(11.9%), while C. felis and C. meleagridis were identified in 4 and 2 children, respectively. Wide genetic variation was observed within C. hominis, with identification of 5 subtype families; Ia, Ib, Id, Ie and If and 21 subtypes. Only subtype family IIc was identified within C. parvum. There was no association between species and HIV status or patient type.


CONCLUSION
C. hominis is the most common species associated with diarrhoea in the study population. There was high genetic variability in the C. hominis isolates with 22 different subtypes identified, whereas genetic diversity was low within C. parvum with only one subtype family IIc identified.
Athlete Robot with applied human muscle activation patterns for bipedal running

The essential component of legged locomotion is control of the ground reaction force. To understand the role of the musculoskeletal body in dynamic locomotion, we investigate bipedal running using a musculoskeletal “Athlete Robot”. The configuration of the muscles in the robot is compatible with the human. The spring-like property of the human lower leg during running is modeled as an elastic blade foot based on findings from biomechanics. The motor command of the robot is represented by time series data of muscle activation. The muscle activation patterns are determined from numerical calculation using a model of the musculoskeletal leg based on the measurement of muscle activity and kinetic data of the human movements. In the simulation results, the robot runs 8 steps with a speed of 3 m/s. We also demonstrate that the real bipedal robot is able to run for several steps.