Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Controversies in the Management of Endometrial Carcinoma: An Update

Endometrial carcinoma is the commonest type of female genital tract malignancy in the developed countries. Endometrial carcinoma is usually confined to the uterus at the time of diagnosis and as such usually carries an excellent prognosis with high curability. Our understanding and management of endometrial cancer have continuously developed. Current controversies focus on screening and early detection, the extent of nodal surgery, and the changing roles of radiation therapy and chemotherapy and will be discussed in this paper.
Modelling personality, plasticity and predictability in shelter dogs

Behavioural assessments of shelter dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) typically comprise standardised test batteries conducted at one time point but test batteries have shown inconsistent predictive validity. Longitudinal behavioural assessments offer an alternative. We modelled longitudinal observational data on shelter dog behaviour using the framework of behavioural reaction norms, partitioning variance into personality (i.e. inter-individual differences in behaviour), plasticity (i.e. individual differences in behavioural change) and predictability (i.e. individual differences in residual intra-individual variation). We analysed data on 3,263 dogs’ interactions (N = 19,281) with unfamiliar people during their first month after arrival at the shelter. Accounting for personality, plasticity (linear and quadratic trends) and predictability improved the predictive accuracy of the analyses compared to models quantifying personality and/or plasticity only. While dogs were, on average, highly sociable with unfamiliar people and sociability increased over days since arrival, group averages were unrepresentative of all dogs and predictions made at the individual level entailed considerable uncertainty. Effects of demographic variables (e.g. age) on personality, plasticity and predictability were observed. Behavioural repeatability was higher one week after arrival compared to arrival day. Our results highlight the value of longitudinal assessments on shelter dogs and identify measures that could improve the predictive validity of behavioural assessments in shelters.
Nonlinear Responses in fMRI: The Balloon Model, Volterra Kernels, and Other Hemodynamics

There is a growing appreciation of the importance of nonlinearities in evoked responses in fMRI, particularly with the advent of event-related fMRI. These nonlinearities are commonly expressed as interactions among stimuli that can lead to the suppression and increased latency of responses to a stimulus that are incurred by a preceding stimulus. We have presented previously a model-free characterization of these effects using generic techniques from nonlinear system identification, namely a Volterra series formulation. At the same time Buxton et al. (1998) described a plausible and compelling dynamical model of hemodynamic signal transduction in fMRI. Subsequent work by Mandeville et al. (1999) provided important theoretical and empirical constraints on the form of the dynamic relationship between blood flow and volume that underpins the evolution of the fMRI signal. In this paper we combine these system identification and model-based approaches and ask whether the Balloon model is sufficient to account for the nonlinear behaviors observed in real time series. We conclude that it can, and furthermore the model parameters that ensue are biologically plausible. This conclusion is based on the observation that the Balloon model can produce Volterra kernels that emulate empirical kernels. To enable this evaluation we had to embed the Balloon model in a hemodynamic input-state-output model that included the dynamics of perfusion changes that are contingent on underlying synaptic activation. This paper presents (i) the full hemodynamic model (ii), how its associated Volterra kernels can be derived, and (iii) addresses the model's validity in relation to empirical nonlinear characterizations of evoked responses in fMRI and other neurophysiological constraints.
Neural Sequence Model Training via $\alpha$-divergence Minimization

We propose a new neural sequence model training method in which the objective function is defined by $\alpha$-divergence. We demonstrate that the objective function generalizes the maximum-likelihood (ML)-based and reinforcement learning (RL)-based objective functions as special cases (i.e., ML corresponds to $\alpha \to 0$ and RL to $\alpha \to1$). We also show that the gradient of the objective function can be considered a mixture of ML- and RL-based objective gradients. The experimental results of a machine translation task show that minimizing the objective function with $\alpha>0$ outperforms $\alpha \to 0$, which corresponds to ML-based methods.
Stability-Indicating Liquid Chromatographic Method for the Quantification of the New Antipsychotic Agent Asenapine in Bulk and in Pharmaceutical Formulation

A simple, specific and stability-indicating reversed phase high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the quantitative determination of asenapine in tablet dosage form. A SunFire C18, 5 μm column having 250×4.6 mm i.d. in isocratic mode, with mobile phase containing 0.02 M potassium dihydrogen phosphate: acetonitrile (95:05, v/v, pH 3.5 adjusted with 1% o-phosphoric acid) was used. The flow rate was 1.0 mL min−1 and effluents were monitored at 232 nm. The retention time of asenapine was 5.51 min. The linearity for asenapine was in the range of 0.1–20 μg/ml. The recoveries obtained for asenapine were 98.31–101.51%. Asenapine stock solutions were subjected to acid and alkali hydrolysis, chemical oxidation, sunlight and dry heat degradation. The degraded product peaks were well resolved from the pure drug peak with significant difference in their retention time values. Stressed samples were assayed using developed LC method. The proposed method was validated with respect to linearity, accuracy, precision and robustness. The method was successfully applied to the estimation of asenapine in tablet dosage form.
Inhibitory effects of blueberry extract on the production of inflammatory mediators in lipopolysaccharide‐activated BV2 microglia

Sustained microglial activation in the central nervous system (CNS) has been extensively investigated in age‐related neurodegenerative diseases and has been postulated to lead to neuronal cell loss in these conditions. Recent studies have shown that antiinflammatory drugs may suppress microglial activation and thus protect against microglial overactivation and subsequent cell loss. Research also suggests that fruits such as berries may contain both antioxidant and antiinflammatory polyphenols that may be important in this regard. Our previous research showed that blueberry extract was effective in preventing oxidant‐induced calcium response deficits in M1 (muscarinic receptor)‐transfected COS‐7 cells. Extrapolating from these findings, the current study investigated the effect of blueberry extract on preventing inflammation‐induced activation of microglia. Results indicated that treatments with blueberry extract inhibited the production of the inflammatory mediator nitric oxide (NO) as well as the cytokines interleukin‐1β and tumor necrosis factor‐α, in cell conditioned media from lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐activated BV2 microglia. Also, mRNA and protein levels of inducible nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase‐2 in LPS‐activated BV2 cells were significantly reduced by treatments with blueberry extract. The results suggest that blueberry polyphenols attenuate inflammatory responses of brain microglia and could be potentially useful in modulation of inflammatory conditions in the CNS. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Induction and Transcriptional Regulation of Laccases in Fungi

Fungal laccases are phenol oxidases widely studied for their use in several industrial applications, including pulp bleaching in paper industry, dye decolourisation, detoxification of environmental pollutants and revalorization of wastes and wastewaters. The main difficulty in using these enzymes at industrial scale ensues from their production costs. Elucidation of the components and the mechanisms involved in regulation of laccase gene expression is crucial for increasing the productivity of native laccases in fungi. Laccase gene transcription is regulated by metal ions, various aromatic compounds related to lignin or lignin derivatives, nitrogen and carbon sources. In this manuscript, most of the published results on fungal laccase induction, as well as analyses of both the sequences and putative functions of laccase gene promoters are reviewed. Analyses of promoter sequences allow defining a correlation between the observed regulatory effects on laccase gene transcription and the presence of specific responsive elements, and postulating, in some cases, a mechanism for their functioning. Only few reports have investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying laccase regulation by different stimuli. The reported analyses suggest the existence of a complex picture of laccase regulation phenomena acting through a variety of cis acting elements. However, the general mechanisms for laccase transcriptional regulation are far from being unravelled yet.
On Regular Hypergraphs of High Girth

We give lower bounds on the maximum possible girth of an $r$-uniform, $d$-regular hypergraph with at most $n$ vertices, using the definition of a hypergraph cycle due to Berge. These differ from the trivial upper bound by an absolute constant factor (viz., by a factor of between $3/2+o(1)$ and $2 +o(1)$). We also define a random $r$-uniform `Cayley' hypergraph on $S_n$ which has girth $\Omega (n^{1/3})$ with high probability, in contrast to random regular $r$-uniform hypergraphs, which have constant girth with positive probability.
Design of a lower-error fixed-width multiplier for speech processing application

A lower-error and lower-variance n/spl times/n multiplier is suitably proposed for VLSI design. Considering the next lower significant stage in P/sub n-1/ column and a useful error-compensation model in the least significant part, and utilizing a near optimized index to classify the error terms are our strategies in order to achieve lower error and variance as compared with previously proposed structure in the subproduct-array of the Baugh-Wooley algorithm. This novel structure applied to the fixed-width low-pass digital FIR filter for a speech signal processing system has excellent performance in reducing maximum error, average error, and variation of errors.
Serological divergence of Dobrava and Saaremaa hantaviruses: evidence for two distinct serotypes

In order to investigate the serological relationship of Dobrava hantavirus (DOBV, originating from Slovenia) and the Dobrava-like Saaremaa virus (SAAV, recently discovered in Estonia) we analysed 37 human serum samples, 24 from Estonia and 13 from the Balkans, by focus reduction neutralization test (FRNT). Most of the Estonian sera (19), including all sera from Saaremaa island (12), reacted with higher FRNT end-point titres to the local SAAV; the majority of them (15 and 11, respectively), with at least fourfold or higher titres to SAAV than to DOBV. In contrast, out of the 13 sera collected in Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Greece, only one reacted more strongly with SAAV (with a twofold higher titre), while 10 of these sera reacted more strongly with the local DOBV (9/10 with fourfold or higher titres). These results indicate that DOBV and SAAV define unique hantavirus serotypes.
Alternating Co-Quantization for Cross-Modal Hashing

This paper addresses the problem of unsupervised learning of binary hash codes for efficient cross-modal retrieval. Many unimodal hashing studies have proven that both similarity preservation of data and maintenance of quantization quality are essential for improving retrieval performance with binary hash codes. However, most existing cross-modal hashing methods mainly have focused on the former, and the latter still remains almost untouched. We propose a method to minimize the binary quantization errors, which is tailored to cross-modal hashing. Our approach, named Alternating Co-Quantization (ACQ), alternately seeks binary quantizers for each modality space with the help of connections to other modality data so that they give minimal quantization errors while preserving data similarities. ACQ can be coupled with various existing cross-modal dimension reduction methods such as Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) and substantially boosts their retrieval performance in the Hamming space. Extensive experiments demonstrate that ACQ can outperform several state-of-the-art methods, even when it is combined with simple CCA.
Towards a Description Logic for Program Analysis: Extending ALCQIO with Reachability

Shape analysis attempts to analyze and verify correctness of programs with dynamic data structures. This is a notoriously difficult task, because it necessitates efficient decision procedures for expressive logics on graphs and graph-like structures. In the last decade, model-theoretic approaches have been less prominent , and the leading approach is proof-theoretic [15]. Recent advances in finite model theory have created an opportunity for development of practical model-theoretic approaches in shape analysis. Description Logics (DLs) are a well established family of logics for Knowledge Representation and Reasoning [2]. They model the domain of interest in terms of concepts (classes of objects) and roles (binary relations between objects). These features make DLs very useful to formally describe and reason about graph-structured information. The usefulness of DLs is witnessed e.g. by the W3C choosing DLs to provide the logical foundations to the standard Web Ontology Language (OWL) [14]. Another application of DLs is formalization and static analysis of UML class diagrams and ER diagrams, which are basic modeling artifacts in object-oriented software development and database design, respectively [4,1]. In these settings, standard reasoning services provided by DLs can be used to verify e.g. the consistency of a diagram. To describe the memory of programs with dynamic data structures using a DL, a rather powerful DL must be chosen. The DL in question needs to allow a computationally problematic combination of constructors: (i) nominals are required to represent the program's variables; (ii) number restrictions are required so that the program's pointers (represented as roles) are interpreted as functions; (iii) inverses are needed for defining data structures such as trees, where elements in the tree must have at most one parent, and for encoding program computation ; and (iv) reachability is required since data structures should contain only elements which are reachable from program variables via program pointers. Our contribution: We introduce and develop decision procedures for the logic ALCQIO b,Re , which extends the closure of ALCQIO under Boolean operations (ALCQIO b) with reachability assertions over finite structures. The main
The Predictive Value of Platelet Function Point-of-Care Tests for Postoperative Blood Loss and Transfusion in Routine Cardiac Surgery: A Systematic Review

Abstract Excessive bleeding after cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) operations remains to be a persistent problem and weak platelet function certainly contributes to bleeding diathesis. Antiplatelet therapy (APT) is an integral component of perioperative management in patients undergoing cardiac surgery procedures, both with and without use of CPB. In addition to individual variability in platelet function, different preoperative APT administration/discontinuation management further affects platelet function, which in turn may reflect bleeding tendency. However, the impact of drug-induced platelet inhibition on early postoperative bleeding extent remains difficult to predict. Herein, we reviewed the available evidence on the association between platelet function testing values and the extent of bleeding and transfusion requirements in early perioperative period. Currently, the association between platelet function measured by ex vivo assay and the occurrence of bleeding events remains uncertain. The intent of this review is to provide comprehensive literature insight into published evidence, investigating the possibility of platelet function tests to predict bleeding extent as well as transfusion requirements in cardiac surgery patients.
A computer vision system for analyzing images of rough hardwood lumber

A computer vision system for locating and identifying defects on rough hardwood lumber in a species-independent manner is described. The system consists of three modules: a low-level module, a mid-level module, and a high-level module. The low-level module is a segmentation module that segments an input board image using a histogram-based thresholding method. The mid-level module eliminates small noise regions, merges similar adjacent regions, and computes region properties of merged regions. The high-level module identifies the defects present in each of the regions passed to it using a rule-based approach. The system is designed to be used in an automatic edger and trimmer for hardwood lumber in order to optimize the value of the hardwood boards processed. <<ETX>>
The influence of outliers on a model for the estimation of crossbreeding parameters for weaning weight in a beef cattle herd

Data on 17348 weaning weight records from a beef cattle crossbreeding operation were used to determine the effect of outliers on regression coefficients. Different criteria were used for detecting potential influential points. Eliminating a small number (932 or 5.4%) influential points resulted in the improvement of the model fitted. The R2 values increased from 41% to 49% while the mean square error was reduced from 672.9 to 500.4. The use of diagnostic statistics for detecting influential observations is recommended before any analysis is performed. South African Journal of Animal Science Vol.32(3) 2002: 164-170
Error metrics for impaired auditory nerve responses of different phoneme groups

An auditory nerve model allows faster investigation of new signal processing algorithms for hearing aids. This paper presents a study of the degradation of auditory nerve (AN) responses at a phonetic level for a range of sensorineural hearing losses and flat audiograms. The AN model of Zilany & Bruce was used to compute responses to a diverse set of phoneme rich sentences from the TIMIT database. The characteristics of both the average discharge rate and spike timing of the responses are discussed. The experiments demonstrate that a mean absolute error metric provides a useful measure of average discharge rates but a more complex measure is required to capture spike timing response errors.
Prehistoric heavy metal pollution on the continental shelf off Hainan Island, South China Sea: From natural to anthropogenic impacts around 4.0 kyr BP

Human–environment interactions across historical periods in China have been well reconstructed over the past decade; however, few studies have focused on southern China, particularly Hainan Island. This study investigated two sediment cores (cores X1 and X2) collected from the continental shelf off Hainan Island in the northern South China Sea. Combined with geochemical compositions (Al, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb), Sr-Nd isotopes, grain size, and AMS 14C ages, our results showed that Cd and Cu in core X1 and Cd and Pb in core X2 have been mainly influenced by anthropogenic activities since ~4.0 kyr BP. The enrichment factors showed obvious increases starting at ~4.0 kyr BP and were in good accordance with the appearance of abundant archeological sites on Hainan Island. Significant climatic changes (i.e. decreases in the East Asian summer monsoon and increases in El Niño–Southern Oscillation activities) at ~4.0 kyr BP likely promoted more intense, localized human activities, which in turn enhanced heavy metal accumulation in the continental shelf sediments. These results provide new insights into the history of human activities on Hainan Island and indicate that the geochemical compositions of continental shelf sediments have the potential for broadening our knowledge of the human activities and cultural development in tropical areas.
Use of emergency medical services by patients encompassed by the Regular GP scheme.

BACKGROUND Norwegian emergency medical services are used with frequency, often in relation to conditions that could wait until the next day to be handled by the patient's regular GP (RGP). We investigated whether there are characteristics of particular GPs that may help explain why patients on their list use the emergency medical services. MATERIAL AND METHODS We used data from the billing cards for 2008 from all emergency doctors, linked to information from the Regular GP database and Statistics Norway, for a total of 4,097 RGPs. For each RGP we estimated a contact rate: The total number of contacts reported for their list patients (identified by their personal ID numbers), divided by the length of the RGP's list. This rate was subsequently analysed with regard to characteristics of the RGP (bivariate analyses and multiple logistic regression). RESULTS The average contact rate amounted to 27.4 contacts per 100 list patients, with significant variation between the RGPs (the 25th percentile was 17.8 contacts and the 75th percentile 33.1). Patients of male RGPs, young RGPs and immigrant RGPs used the emergency medical services more frequently than patients of female RGPs, older RGPs and Norwegian RGPs. Patients from long lists, single-doctor practices and open lists used the emergency medical services less frequently than patients from short lists, group practices and closed lists. The contact rate was higher in rural municipalities than in urban areas. INTERPRETATION The large variations in the use of emergency medical services indicate that more RGPs should take measures to improve accessibility for emergency calls during the daytime.
Tree-ring-density inferred August–September temperature variability on the eastern Tibetan Plateau for the past two centuries

ABSTRACT Climate change, especially the rapid warming since the industrial revolution, has drawn much attention over the past decades. However, the short instrumental climate records on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) impede our understanding of the current status of climate. Although tree-ring-based temperature reconstructions have been developed on the TP, increasing the spatial distribution of sampling sites can improve our understanding of the recent warming. Here we present a new tree-ring maximum latewood density chronology of Balfour spruce (Picea likiangensis var. balfouriana) growing near the upper treeline on the eastern TP, and use it to reconstruct late summer (August–September) mean temperature since AD 1837. The reconstruction explains 61.7% of the actual variance of instrumental August–September mean temperature over the calibration period 1957–2014, and represents regional-scale temperature variations over the eastern and southeastern TP. The August–September mean temperature reconstruction reveals three relatively cold phases (the 1850s–1870s, the 1900s–1910s and the 1960s) and two warm periods (the 1930s–1940s and 1972–2014) over the past two centuries. Comparisons of our reconstruction with other independent tree-ring-based temperature records and glacier fluctuation documents near our research area show good consistencies in those cold and warm phases. Our reconstruction exhibits a pronounced and persistent temperature rise since the 1960s, providing a new line of evidence for the recent warming on the TP. Moreover, our results indicate that the August–September mean temperature variability over the eastern TP has a potential linkage with the EI Nino/Southern Oscillation and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation.