Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accuracy of Digital Radiography and Cone Beam Computed Tomography on Periapical Radiolucency Detection in Endodontically Treated Teeth

ABSTRACT Objectives The aim of the present study was to compare the accuracy of intraoral digital periapical radiography and cone beam computed tomography in the detection of periapical radiolucencies in endodontically treated teeth. Material and Methods Radiographic images (cone beam computed tomography [CBCT] scans and digital periapical radiography [PR] images) from 60 patients, achieved from September 2008 to July 2013, were retrieved from databases of the Department of Oral Diseases, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Twenty patients met inclusion criteria and were selected for further evaluation. Results In 20 patients (42.4 [SD 12.1] years, 65% men and 35% women) a total of 35 endodontically treated teeth (1.75 [SD 0.91]; 27 in maxilla and 8 in mandible) were evaluated. Overall, it was observed a statistical significant difference between the number of periapical lesions observed in the CBCT (n = 42) and radiographic (n = 24) examinations (P < 0.05). In molar teeth, CBCT identify a significantly higher amount of periapical lesions than with the radiographic method (P < 0.05). There were significant differences between CBCT and PR in the mean number of lesions identified per tooth (1.2 vs 0.66, P = 0.03), number of teeth with lesions (0.71 vs 0.46, P = 0.03) and number of lesions identified per canal (0.57 vs 0.33, P = 0.005). Considering CBCT as “gold standard” in lesion detection with the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy considering as score 1, then the same parameters of PR were 0.57, 1 and 0.76 respectively. Conclusions Within the limitations of the present study, it can be concluded that cone beam computed tomography scans were more accurate compared to digital periapical radiographs for detecting periapical radiolucencies in endodontically treated teeth. The difference was more pronounced in molar teeth.
Exploring the value space of attributes: Unsupervised bidirectional clustering of adjectives in German

The paper presents an iterative bidirectional clustering of adjectives and nouns based on a co-occurrence matrix. The clustering method combines a Vector Space Models (VSM) and the results of a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), whose results are merged in each iterative step. The aim is to derive a clustering of German adjectives that reflects latent semantic classes of adjectives, and that can be used to induce frame-based representations of nouns in a later step. We are able to show that the method induces meaningful groups of adjectives, and that it outperforms a baseline k-means algorithm.
Brane Q-ball, branonium and brane inflation

We study the stability of branonium. Contrary to previous arguments, the global structure of branonium is not stable against spatial fluctuations and decays into local objects. We consider the idea of brane Q-balls. Brane Q-balls are produced as the remnants of unstable branonium. Although brane Q-balls are conceptually different from conventional Q-balls, they look similar in some parametric regions. We show how to distinguish brane Q-balls from conventional Q-balls.
Effects of Time of Sampling on Oocyst Detection and Effects of Age and Experimentally Elevated Testosterone on Prevalence of Coccidia in Male Dark-eyed Juncos

The hormone testosterone (T) has been linked to enhanced expression of secondary sexual traits and acquisition of mates (Ligon et al. 1990, Alatalo et al. 1996, Raouf et al. 1997). However, high plasma levels of testosterone also have been suggested to suppress immune function (Folstad and Karter 1992, Zuk et al. 1995, Hillgarth and Wingfield 1997; but see Ros et al. 1997, Hasselquist et al. 1999). Thus, an obvious question is whether testosterone enhances reproductive success while simultaneously affecting susceptibility to disease. In the Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), experimental maintenance of plasma testosterone levels at their natural early season peak for the entire breeding season causes males to sing more frequently, and testosterone-treated males (T-males) in captivity are more attractive to females than are control males (Cmales; Enstrom et al. 1997, Hill et al. 1999). However, T-males also have elevated plasma levels of the steroid hormone corticosterone (Ketterson et al. 1991, Klukowski et al. 1997) and show a greater response to handling stress than do C-males (Schoech et al. 1999), which can translate into suppressed immune function (Sapolsky 1992, Besedovsky and del Rey 1996, J. Casto pers. comm.). To investigate possible effects of elevated levels of plasma testosterone on the junco’s susceptibility to disease, we asked whether free-living males treated with testosterone would be more likely than controls to be infected by coccidia (Isospora spp.), a protozoan gut parasite belonging to the Eimeria complex. We also asked whether yearling juncos were more likely than older adults to be infected and whether our ability to detect infection was affected by the time of day when fecal samples were collected. Methods. —This research was conducted at the University of Virginia’s Mountain Lake Biological Station (378229N, 808329W; see Chandler et al. [1994] for description of study area). We captured male juncos in mist nets and Potter traps during the early spring of 1995 and 1996 and classified them as second year (younger) and after second year (older) based on
Pathological Personality Traits (DSM-5), Risk Factors, and Mental Health

This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the brief version of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5-BF) in a community sample of Argentine adult population, to establish its relationship with the Big Five normal personality traits, and to examine the association of pathological traits with mental and physical maladaptiveness assessed through the level of mental health and World Health Organization (WHO) health risk factors. The sample consisted of 1,032 subjects from the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. The PID-5-BF, the Big Five Inventory, the Mental Health Continuum–Short Form, and the Survey on risk factors for noncommunicable diseases were used. A five-factorial structure that explained 59.48% of the variance was found, with reliability values higher than α = . 86 for each factor. Convergences among pathological personality traits and the five-factor personality model were found, except for Psychoticism and Openness to experience. The severity of personality traits was associated with low levels of mental health and higher number of WHO health risk factors. Nevertheless, the associations among these variables were low to moderate.
A Small Antigenic Determinant of the Chikungunya Virus E2 Protein Is Sufficient to Induce Neutralizing Antibodies which Are Partially Protective in Mice

Background The mosquito-borne Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) causes high fever and severe joint pain in humans. It is expected to spread in the future to Europe and has recently reached the USA due to globalization, climate change and vector switch. Despite this, little is known about the virus life cycle and, so far, there is no specific treatment or vaccination against Chikungunya infections. We aimed here to identify small antigenic determinants of the CHIKV E2 protein able to induce neutralizing immune responses. Methodology/Principal Findings E2 enables attachment of the virus to target cells and a humoral immune response against E2 should protect from CHIKV infections. Seven recombinant proteins derived from E2 and consisting of linear and/or structural antigens were created, and were expressed in and purified from E. coli. BALB/c mice were vaccinated with these recombinant proteins and the mouse sera were screened for neutralizing antibodies. Whereas a linear N-terminally exposed peptide (L) and surface-exposed parts of the E2 domain A (sA) alone did not induce neutralizing antibodies, a construct containing domain B and a part of the β-ribbon (called B+) was sufficient to induce neutralizing antibodies. Furthermore, domain sA fused to B+ (sAB+) induced the highest amount of neutralizing antibodies. Therefore, the construct sAB+ was used to generate a recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA), MVA-CHIKV-sAB+. Mice were vaccinated with MVA-CHIKV-sAB+ and/or the recombinant protein sAB+ and were subsequently challenged with wild-type CHIKV. Whereas four vaccinations with MVA-CHIKV-sAB+ were not sufficient to protect mice from a CHIKV infection, protein vaccination with sAB+ markedly reduced the viral titers of vaccinated mice. Conclusions/Significance The recombinant protein sAB+ contains important structural antigens for a neutralizing antibody response in mice and its formulation with appropriate adjuvants might lead to a future CHIKV vaccine.
Avian responses to selective logging shaped by species traits and logging practices

Selective logging is one of the most common forms of forest use in the tropics. Although the effects of selective logging on biodiversity have been widely studied, there is little agreement on the relationship between life-history traits and tolerance to logging. In this study, we assessed how species traits and logging practices combine to determine species responses to selective logging, based on over 4000 observations of the responses of nearly 1000 bird species to selective logging across the tropics. Our analysis shows that species traits, such as feeding group and body mass, and logging practices, such as time since logging and logging intensity, interact to influence a species' response to logging. Frugivores and insectivores were most adversely affected by logging and declined further with increasing logging intensity. Nectarivores and granivores responded positively to selective logging for the first two decades, after which their abundances decrease below pre-logging levels. Larger species of omnivores and granivores responded more positively to selective logging than smaller species from either feeding group, whereas this effect of body size was reversed for carnivores, herbivores, frugivores and insectivores. Most importantly, species most negatively impacted by selective logging had not recovered approximately 40 years after logging cessation. We conclude that selective timber harvest has the potential to cause large and long-lasting changes in avian biodiversity. However, our results suggest that the impacts can be mitigated to a certain extent through specific forest management strategies such as lengthening the rotation cycle and implementing reduced impact logging.
Clique-based semantic kernel with application to semantic relatedness

Abstract The emergence of knowledge repositories in a variety of domains provides a valuable opportunity for semantic interpretation of high dimensional datasets. Previous researches investigate the use of concept instead of word as a core semantic feature for incorporating semantic knowledge from an ontology into the representation model of documents. On the other hand, in machine learning and information retrieval, data objects are represented as a flat feature vector. The inconsistency between the structural nature of the knowledge repositories and the flat representation of features in machine learning leads researchers to neglect the structure of the knowledge base and leverage concepts as isolated semantic features, which is known as bag-of-concepts. Although, using concepts has some advantages over words, by neglecting the relation between concepts, the problem of vocabulary mismatch remains in force. In this paper, a novel semantic kernel is proposed which is capable of incorporating the relatedness between conceptual features. This kernel leverages clique theory to map data objects to a novel feature space wherein complex data objects will be comparable. The proposed kernel is relevant to all applications which have a prior knowledge about the relatedness between features. We concentrate on representing text documents and words using Wikipedia and WordNet, respectively. The experimental results over a set of benchmark datasets have revealed that the proposed kernel significantly improves the representation of both words and texts in the application of semantic relatedness.
Differential cerebral metabolic changes with paroxetine treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder vs major depression.

BACKGROUND Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) effectively treat both major depressive disorder (MDD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We compared and contrasted the functional neuroanatomical effects of SRIs in OCD and MDD as these 2 disorders occurred separately and concurrently by measuring pretreatment to posttreatment cerebral glucose metabolic changes in OCD vs MDD vs concurrent OCD + MDD. METHODS We obtained [(18)F]fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (PET) brain scans on 25 subjects with OCD, 25 with MDD, and 16 with concurrent OCD + MDD before and after 8 to 12 weeks of treatment with paroxetine hydrochloride. Controls (n = 16) were scanned 10 to 12 weeks apart without treatment. Treatment response was defined as a more than 25% decline in OCD symptom severity, a more than 50% decline in MDD severity, and "much improved" clinical global impression. RESULTS Although all patient groups received the same paroxetine dose for the same duration, regional metabolic changes differed significantly among diagnostic groups. Subjects with OCD alone showed significant metabolic decreases in the right caudate nucleus, right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, and thalamus that were not seen in any other group. Both the MDD and concurrent OCD + MDD groups showed metabolic decreases in the left VLPFC and increases in the right striatum. Treatment response was associated with a decrease in striatal metabolism in nondepressed OCD patients but with an increase in striatal activity in patients with OCD + MDD. CONCLUSIONS Brain metabolic responses to SRIs are both disorder-specific and response-specific. They vary according to the underlying pathophysiology of the patient and the degree of symptomatic improvement.
Serum Soluble Fas (sFas) levels might be a discriminator between precancerous and Cancerous Cervical lesion in North Indian Population- A case control study

Background: One of the best characterized apoptosis triggering systems is the CD95/Fas/APO-1 pathway. Aim of the study was to evaluate the serum sFas levels in cervical neoplasia and localized cervical cancer patients and examines its role as a discriminator between precancerous and cancerous cervical lesion. Methods: A case control study was conducted in Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, in collaboration with Pathology, CSM Medical University, Lucknow. 5ml venous blood samples were drawn into sterile vials, prior to treatment being administered. sFas levels were measured with an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay in histopathological proven 45 cases of Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN I, II and III), 30 cervical cancer patients (FIGO Stage I and II) and 30 cervical cytology negative healthy volunteers (Pap Smear). Results: In the present study we observed a significant positive correlation between sFas levels of healthy controls, CIN I, CIN II, CIN III and early invasive localized cancer patients (stage I and II) (p<0.001). It was observed that the three stages of precancer, and stage I and II of cervical cancer although had small difference in their mean sFas levels yet, can be precisely discriminated on the basis of mean sFas level alone. Risk classification matrix obtained using the discriminate function analysis, showed that sFas levels in plasma of patients with CIN I, II and III could helped in better predicting the risk of developing invasive cervical cancer in individual patient. sFas level was able to validate about 98% of cases correctly. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that sFas levels could be used as a discriminator between precancerous and cancerous cervical lesion. The clear discrimination between precancerous and cancerous cervical lesions by sFas can be used in quantification of the risk to have a better understanding of natural history of disease.
The Clinical and Pathological Presentation of Thyroid Nodules in Children and the Comparison with Adult Population: Experience of a Single Institution

The clinical and pathological presentation of thyroid nodules among younger and adult patients was compared in an iodine-deficient (ID) region. Data of 3,010 consecutive patients younger than 20 years and 3,010 patients older than 20 years were compared. The proportion of nodular goiters (22.8% versus 39.3%), the ratio of surgically treated nodules (33.2% versus 15.2%), and the proportion of malignant nodules (4.3% versus 2.1%) among diseased patients differed significantly between the two groups (younger versus adult). Nine papillary and 1 medullary carcinoma were found among children, while 15 papillary, 2 follicular, 1 insular, 1 anaplastic, and 1 medullary carcinomas occurred among adults. The ratio of follicular adenoma to hyperplastic nodules (3 : 1 to 1 : 1.67), the proportion of follicular variant (77.8% versus 26.7%), T4 tumors (77.8% versus 33.3%), and tumors with lymph node metastasis (88.9% versus 66.7%) were significantly higher among younger papillary carcinoma patients. No malignancies occurred among spongiform and central type cysts. Similarly to iodine-sufficient regions, more nodules are malignant and carcinomas have a clinically more aggressive presentation in children in comparison with adult patients in ID. Taking the significantly greater proportion of adenomas and the lack of follicular carcinoma into account, a conservative approach has to be considered in follicular tumors among children.
Preoperative Biliary Drainage in Cases of Borderline Resectable Pancreatic Cancer Treated with Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy and Surgery

Objective. To elucidate the optimum preoperative biliary drainage method for patients with pancreatic cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). Material and Methods. From January 2010 through December 2014, 20 patients with borderline resectable pancreatic cancer underwent preoperative biliary drainage and NAC with a plastic or metallic stent and received NAC at Hiroshima University Hospital. We retrospectively analyzed delayed NAC and complication rates due to biliary drainage, effect of stent type on perioperative factors, and hospitalization costs from diagnosis to surgery. Results. There were 11 cases of preoperative biliary drainage with plastic stents and nine metallic stents. The median age was 64.5 years; delayed NAC occurred in 9 cases with plastic stent and 1 case with metallic stent (p = 0.01). The complication rates due to biliary drainage were 0% (0/9) with metallic stents and 72.7% (8/11) with plastic stents (p = 0.01). Cumulative rates of complications determined with the Kaplan-Meier method on day 90 were 60% with plastic stents and 0% with metallic stents (log-rank test, p = 0.012). There were no significant differences between group in perioperative factors or hospitalization costs from diagnosis to surgery. Conclusions. Metallic stent implantation may be effective for preoperative biliary drainage for pancreatic cancer treated with NAC.
A reinforcement learning algorithm for obtaining the Nash equilibrium of multi-player matrix games

With the advent of e-commerce, the contemporary marketplace has evolved significantly toward competition-based trading of goods and services. Competition in many such market scenarios can be modeled as matrix games. This paper presents a computational algorithm to obtain the Nash equilibrium of n-player matrix games. The algorithm uses a stochastic-approximation-based Reinforcement Learning (RL) approach and has the potential to solve n-player matrix games with large player–action spaces. The proposed RL algorithm uses a value-iteration-based approach, which is well established in the Markov decision processes/semi-Markov decision processes literature. To emphasize the broader impact of our solution approach for matrix games, we discuss the established connection of matrix games with discounted and average reward stochastic games, which model a much larger class of problems. The solutions from the RL algorithm are extensively benchmarked with those obtained from an openly available software (GAMBIT). This comparative analysis is performed on a set of 16 matrix games with up to four players and 64 action choices. We also implement our algorithm on practical examples of matrix games that arise due to strategic bidding in restructured electric power markets.
An Experimental Analysis of Irish Electricity Auctions

This paper examines the recently deregulated Irish electricity market. We ask: given this newly imposed institutional structure, does the availability of true marginal prices for electricity products affect the price/quantity bids submitted by market participants? First, we analyse the price movements within this market since 2007 to produce a model which best describes the data. Second, we test the auction design of the electricity markets experimentally. The current auction design is a static bidding framework. We find that if the auction were to operate under a sequential bidding auction, all market participants would benefit, as lower clearing prices would result.
Documenting pedagogical support measures in Finnish IEPs for students with intellectual disability

Abstract The individual education plan (IEP) is an essential part of special education and is used widely in Western countries for documenting both the learning goals and support measures for children with special needs. This study focused on the documentation of support measures in the IEPs of Finnish students with intellectual disability (ID) (N = 21). The documents contained 195 expressions of support measures analysed by content analysis. The results showed that most support measures in the IEPs were general pedagogical principles from the research literature. In general, the expressions were not described thoroughly, although there were some specific expressions of support measures amplified by descriptions of the activity, person in charge or context. Further research is needed on how to best support teachers in documenting IEPs.