Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IMS HotCoref DE: A Data-driven Co-reference Resolver for German

This paper presents a data-driven co-reference resolution system for German that has been adapted from IMS HotCoref, a co-reference resolver for English. It describes the difficulties when resolving co-reference in German text, the adaptation process and the features designed to address linguistic challenges brought forth by German. We report performance on the reference dataset TüBa-D/Z and include a post-task SemEval 2010 evaluation, showing that the resolver achieves state-of-the-art performance. We also include ablation experiments that indicate that integrating linguistic features increases results. The paper also describes the steps and the format necessary to use the resolver on new texts. The tool is freely available for download.
HYDRODYNAMIC ISSUES IN PAMS MANDREL TARGET FABRICATION

OAK-B135 Imperfections in PAMS mandrels critically govern the quality of final ICF targets. Imperfections in the mandrels can have a wide range of origins. Here, they present observations of 3 types of imperfections, and data to support the proposal that hydrodynamic factors during the curing of the mandrel are potential causes of these imperfections.
The Loss of Positional Certainty in Long-Term Memory

Long-term memory for sequential position was examined following retention intervals that ranged from 30 sec to 24 h. The Estes perturbation model (1972) is shown to provide a reasonable qualitative fit of the dynamics of forgetting, even though the model was designed to account for the phenomena of immediate memory. Similarities among the forgetting processes of short-and long-term memory are considered.
A Drying Technique for the Determination of the Bound Water in Pulp Fibers

A drying method involving the use of a thermobalance was employed to determine the bound water in mechanical and chemical pulp fibers. The precision of this method is dependent on the uniformity of the test materials. The coefficient of variability of bound water determination on mechanical pulps ranged from 15 to 18% based on one in dividual sample. This variability decreased in chemical pulps, 10 to 12%, and about 2% in α-cellulose. For a precision superior to ±10% (95% confidence level) a minimum of 10 individual mechanical pulp samples have to be tested. Similary, seven and one tests have to be made on chemical pulps and α-cellulose, respectively. The method should be useful to the study of the drying behavior of homogenous materials such as low-yield pulps and cotton or other textile materials.
Overview of the English Slot Filling Track at the TAC2014 Knowledge Base Population Evaluation

We overview the English Slot Filling (SF) track of the TAC2014 Knowledge Base Population (KBP) evaluation. The goal of this KBP track is to promote research in the extraction of binary relations between named and numeric entities from free text. The main changes this year include: (a) the inclusion of ambiguous queries, i.e., queries that point to multiple real-life entities with the same name; (b) accepting outputs created through inference; and (c) a simpliﬁcation of the task and of the input format by removing references to the knowledge base for the entities included in queries. The SF track attracted 31 registered teams, out of which 18 teams submitted at least one run. The highest score this year was 36.72 F1, with a median of 19.80 F1.
Depression, anxiety and stress levels in industrial workers: A pilot study in Bangalore, India

Background: Mental health disorders affect around 500 million people worldwide. In India, around 10-12% of people are affected by a mental disorder either due to stress, depression, anxiety, or any other cause. Mental health of workers affects the productivity of the workplace, with estimates putting these losses to be over 100 million dollars annually. Aims: The study aims to measure depression, anxiety, and stress levels of workers in an industry and to investigate if it has any effect on productivity of the firm. Materials and Methods: The study utilized a cross-sectional design and was conducted among workmen of the firm. A sociodemographic based questionnaire and a mental health screening tool -Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS)-21 were used for the same. A total of 90 completed questionnaires were analyzed for the study. The data was analyzed for central tendencies as well as for any associations and correlations. Results: The study showed that none of the workers had a positive score for depression. It also showed that around 36% of the workers had a positive score for anxiety and 18% of the workers had a positive score for stress on DASS-21 scale. The odds ratio between stress and number of leaves taken by a worker in the last 3 months suggested a dose-response relationship, but was statistically insignificant. Conclusion: The study found a prevalence rate of around 18-36% for anxiety and stress amongst the workers at the factory. Large-scale studies will help understand the effect mental health status has on the Indian workplace.
Fluency Constraints for Minimum Bayes-Risk Decoding of Statistical Machine Translation Lattices

A novel and robust approach to improving statistical machine translation fluency is developed within a minimum Bayes-risk decoding framework. By segmenting translation lattices according to confidence measures over the maximum likelihood translation hypothesis we are able to focus on regions with potential translation errors. Hypothesis space constraints based on monolingual coverage are applied to the low confidence regions to improve overall translation fluency.
Three-dimensional neurite tracing under globally varying contrast

We study the 3D neurite tracing problem in different imaging modalities. We consider that the examined images do not provide sufficient contrast between neurite and background, and the signal-to-noise ratio varies spatially. We first split the stack into box sub-volumes, and inside each box we evolve simultaneously a number of different open-curve snakes. The curves deform based on three criteria: local image statistics, local shape smoothness, and a term that enforces pairwise attraction between snakes, given their spatial proximity and shapes. We validate our method using larva Drosophila sensory neurons imaged with confocal laser scanning microscopy, as well as publicly available datasets.
Coding facial expressions with Gabor wavelets

A method for extracting information about facial expressions from images is presented. Facial expression images are coded using a multi-orientation multi-resolution set of Gabor filters which are topographically ordered and aligned approximately with the face. The similarity space derived from this representation is compared with one derived from semantic ratings of the images by human observers. The results show that it is possible to construct a facial expression classifier with Gabor coding of the facial images as the input stage. The Gabor representation shows a significant degree of psychological plausibility, a design feature which may be important for human-computer interfaces.
A ten-year retrospective study of tetanus at a general hospital in Malaysia.

AIMS To study the demographic and clinical features as well as outcomes of tetanus patients at the Sarawak General Hospital, Kuching from 1990 to 1999. METHODS All cases of tetanus from January 1990 to September 1999 were identified from the computer record at the hospital and these were then restrospectively reviewed. RESULTS A total of 22 cases of tetanus was seen at the Sarawak General Hospital in the ten-year period with a mean of 2.2 cases per year. There were 15 male (68.2%) and 7 female (31.8%) patients. Most cases occurred in the age group 60-69. Eighteen patients (81.8%) had a reasonably identifiable injury prior to the onset; all had their wounds debrided. Body stiffness, trismus and dysphagia were the three commonest presenting complaints. Twenty-one patients (95.5%) were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), with an average length of ICU stay of 21.4 days. Nineteen patients (86.4%) required mechanical ventilation for a varying period of time in the ICU. All patients (100%) had tracheostomy performed and intravenous diazepam infusion as part of their management. Twenty patients (90.9%) received intravenous crystalline penicillin as the treatment antibiotics. Twenty-one patients (95.5%) received intramuscular human antitetanus immunoglobulin. There were four deaths, accounting for a mortality of 18.2%. CONCLUSION In general, tetanus remains in Sarawak an important disease with substantial mortality and morbidity that primarily affects unvaccinated or inadequately vaccinated individuals. It is, however, highly preventable through both routine vaccination and appropriate wound management. Our case series show comparable pattern and outcome with other case series reported in the literatures.
Novel Scheduling Algorithms for Multimedia Service in OFDM Broadband Wireless Systems

Scheduling algorithms play a key role in overall system performance of broadband wireless systems (BWS) such as WLAN/WMAN. Maximal SNR (MaxSNR) and Round Robin (RR) are two conventional scheduling strategies which emphasize efficiency and fairness respectively. Proportional Fair (PF) algorithm provides tradeoff between efficiency and fairness and it has been well studied in TDMA and CDMA systems. In this paper, we apply the PF scheduling algorithm to IEEE 802.16a OFDM based BWS and call it OPF. In addition, we propose three algorithms for multimedia services: (1) Adaptive OPF (AOPF), (2) Multimedia AOPF (MAOPF) and (3) Normalized MAOPF (NMAOPF). Adaptive modulation and coding schemes are applied to combat the time varying nature of the wireless channels. System performances of all six algorithms are compared in terms of efficiency and fairness. Joint PHY and MAC layer simulation results show that the proposed schemes provide better tradeoff between efficiency and fairness than conventional algorithms.
Ordering and Reverse Ordering Mechanisms of Triblock Copolymers in the Presence of Solvent

Self-consistent field theory is used to study the self-assembly of a triblock copolymer melt. Two different external factors (temperature and solvent) are shown to affect the self-assembly. Either one or two-step self-assembly can be found as a function of temperature in the case of a neat triblock melt, or as a function of increasing solvent content (for non-selective solvents) in the case of a triblock-solvent mixture. For selective solvents, it is shown that increasing the solvent content leads to more complicated self-assembly mechanisms, including a reversed transition where order is found to increase instead of decreasing as expected, and re-entrant behavior where order is found to increase at first, and then decrease to a previous state of disorder.
Properties and behaviour of structural lightweight (Lytag-sand) concrete

Lytag is a synthetic lightweight aggregate which has been in commercial production for many years. Its production process involves sintering pulverised fuel ash at approximately 1200-1300°C to produce spherical, chemically inert pellets with a porous structure, which is graded into coarse, medium and fine grades. Concrete, produced with Lytag coarse and fine material, has been extensively studied to assess its basic material and structural properties. Few data, however, are available on concrete made with Lytag coarse material and natural sand fines. The aims of this investigation were basically two-fold. Firstly the material properties of Lytag-sand concrete were investigated and an extensive study of various properties such as strength, moduli of elasticity, Poisson's ratio, stress-strain characteristics, shrinkage, moisture movement and creep are reported. Secondly, the structural behaviour of reinforced Lytag-sand concrete T-beams failing in shear and flexure was also investigated. As with all concretes, these properties are affected by the constituents which make up the concrete, in particular the aggregate. With this in mind microscopic examination of several Lytag pellets was carried out using a scanning electron microscope (S. E. M. ) in order to observe some of the physical characteristics of Lytag aggregates in general. An attempt was then made to relate these characteristics to the water absorption of Lytag aggregates. The test results show that concrete strengths of 60 N/mm2 are easily obtainable using Lytag and sand, and that in general a lower cement content is required for Lytag-sand, than for other sand replaced lightweight concretes, in order to achieve a given compressive strength. Shrinkage and creep are comparable with the range of values obtained for concretes made with various dense aggregates but when compared to concretes made with good quality dense aggregates values of the order of 1.5 times the dense concrete values are to be expected.
Detecting autologous blood transfusions: a comparison of three passport approaches and four blood markers

Blood passport has been suggested as an indirect tool to detect various kinds of blood manipulations. Autologous blood transfusions are currently undetectable, and the objective of this study was to examine the sensitivities of different blood markers and blood passport approaches in order to determine the best approach to detect autologous blood transfusions. Twenty‐nine subjects were transfused with either one (n=8) or three (n=21) bags of autologous blood. Hemoglobin concentration ([Hb]), percentage of reticulocytes (%ret) and hemoglobin mass (Hbmass) were measured 1 day before reinfusion and six times after reinfusion. The sensitivity and specificity of a novel marker, Hbmr (based on Hbmass and %ret), was evaluated together with [Hb], Hbmass and OFF‐hr by different passport methods. Our novel Hbmr marker showed superior sensitivity in detecting the highest dosage of transfused blood, with OFF‐hr showing equal or superior sensitivities at lower dosages. Hbmr and OFF‐hr showed superior but equal sensitivities from 1 to 4 weeks after transfusion compared with [Hb] and Hbmass, with Hbmass being the only tenable prospect to detect acute transfusions. Because autologous blood transfusions can be an acute practice with blood withdrawal and reinfusion within a few days, Hbmass seems to be the only option for revealing this practice.
Free serum cortisol: quantification applying equilibrium dialysis or ultrafiltration and an automated immunoassay system

Abstract Background: Quantification of bioactive, free serum cortisol concentrations can characterize adrenocortical function more appropriately compared to total serum cortisol measurement. Ultrafiltration or equilibrium dialysis of serum samples allow direct measurement of free serum cortisol concentrations but respective methods have poorly been validated so far. The aim of our study was to investigate the analytical performance of free serum cortisol measurement employing equilibrium dialysis and ultrafiltration. Methods: Two commercially available ultrafiltration devices and self-assembled dialysis cells, respectively, were studied. Cortisol was quantified in filtrate or dialysate using an automated immunoassay system. Using two serum pools, the inter-assay coefficient of variation was determined for the three methods and a method comparison was performed. Results: Inter-assay coefficients of variation (n=10) between 3.2% and 14.8% were observed in the imprecision study. Method comparison demonstrated close agreement between free serum cortisol results obtained by ultrafiltration and equilibrium dialysis, respectively (equilibrium dialysis=1.2×ultrafiltration+3.9 nmol/L; r=0.99; n=35). Conclusions: Direct quantification of free serum cortisol after equilibrium dialysis or ultrafiltration of the samples offers acceptable reproducibility and results in close agreement can be obtained. Both methods can potentially be introduced into a routine laboratory setting. Clin Chem Lab Med 2007;45:521–5.
Mimicry in Recognition of Cardiac Myosin Peptides by Heart-Intralesional T Cell Clones from Rheumatic Heart Disease1

Molecular mimicry between Streptococcus pyogenes Ags and human proteins has been considered as a mechanism leading to autoimmune reactions in rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Cardiac myosin has been shown as a putative autoantigen recognized by autoantibodies of rheumatic fever patients. We assessed the human heart-intralesional T cell response against human light meromyosin (LMM) and streptococcal M5 peptides and mitral-valve-derived proteins by proliferation assay. Cytokines induced by LMM peptides were also evaluated. The frequency of intralesional T cell clones that recognized LMM peptides was 63.2%. Thirty-four percent of T cell clones presented cross-reactivity with different patterns: 1) myosin and valve-derived proteins; 2) myosin and streptococcal M5 peptides; and 3) myosin, valve-derived proteins and M5 peptides. In addition, several LMM peptides were recognized simultaneously showing a multiple reactivity pattern of heart-infiltrating T cells. Inflammatory cytokines (IFN-γ and TNF-α) were predominantly produced by heart-infiltrating T cells upon stimulation with LMM peptides. The alignment of LMM and streptococcal M5 peptides showed frequent homology among conserved amino acid substitutions. This is the first study showing the cellular response by human heart-infiltrating T cells against cardiac myosin epitopes in RHD patients. The high percentage of reactivity against cardiac myosin strengthens its role as one of the major autoantigens involved in rheumatic heart lesions. T cell reactivity toward myosin epitopes in RHD patients may also trigger the broad recognition of valvular proteins with structural or functional similarities.
Responsive Integrative Treatment of Clients with PTSD and Trauma-Related Disorders: An Expanded Evidence-Based Model

In this article a practitioner oriented review of the literature on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder is used to construct a phase-based model that can serve as a basis for case formulation and treatment planning. Treatments shown to be efficacious in randomized controlled trials are listed and two discourses about them are contrasted. One calls for therapists to implement treatments scrupulously according to the manual, the other calls for flexibility and responsiveness to contextual understanding of the situation and personality of individual clients. Evidence for the centrality of the principles of this latter discourse for professional practice is summarized from work on case formulation, standards for therapist competence, and the concept of evidence-based practice. This provides the foundation for a model for treatment of PTSD, both simple and complex, that has five levels which represent increasing degrees of depth of clinical work. In accordance with the phased approach, conditions at one level need to be satisfied before proceeding to work on a deeper level. At each level specific areas of clinical focus are highlighted including risk management (at level 1), building the therapeutic alliance (at level 2) and trauma-focused work (at level 3). The model serves as a broad structured summary of accumulated clinical knowledge about PTSD and its treatment that provides an evidence-based foundation for assessment and treatment planning.
Social Cognitive Theory and Individual Reactions to Computing Technology: A Longitudinal Study

A model, based on Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory, was developed to test the influence of computer self-efficacy, outcome expectations, affect, and anxiety on computer usage. The model was tested using longitudinal data gathered from 394 end users over a one-year interval. Significant relationships were found between computer self-efficacy and outcome expectations, and between self-efficacy and affect and anxiety and use. Performance outcomes were found to influence affect and use, while affect was significantly related to use. Overall, the findings provide strong confirmation that both self-efficacy and outcome expectations impact on an individual's affective and behavioral reactions to information technology.
Efficiency of ultrasonography in assessing cervical lymph node metastasis in oral carcinoma

Objectives The study was conducted to assess the value of ultrasonography (USG) for lymph node metastasis in patients with carcinoma of oral cavity. Materials and Methods: A total of 20 cases were selected with primary tumor of oral cavity. Ninety-two lymph nodes were detected by ultrasound of 5 mm or more in diameter. The patients were examined preoperatively for palpable lymph nodes clinically and ultrasonographic examination of bilateral neck. Ultrasonographic parameters, such as size, shape, boundaries (well-delineated/ poorly delineated) and internal echoes for the lymph nodes were recorded. Results: The histologic positive rate was 25%, 80% and 93% for nodes between 5 and 10 mm, 10 and 15 mm and for nodes 15 mm or more in size, respectively. Ultrasonographic findings showed a high significance as the size of nodes increases. The positive rate of 86% for the round nodes of 9 mm or more in size showed a high significance. The positive rate was 93% for well-delineated nodes and 68% for poorly delineated nodes. The most frequent echo pattern was homogenous followed by hypoechoic with positive rate for metastasis ranging from 83% to 88%. Conclusion: The diagnostic validity of USG as compared with histopathology showed sensitivity of 86% and specificity of 73% with overall efficiency of about 82% in detecting lymph node metastasis. USG is useful for preoperative evaluation of the neck, as the most reliable, inexpensive and easily available method. It is essential for diagnosis, staging and therapy choices.
Central nervous system infections in immunocompromised patients – update on diagnostics and therapy

Infections of the central nervous system (CNS) are increasingly reported in patients with malignancies. Heavily immunocompromised patients like those after allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) or previous T cell depleting treatment regimens (e.g. with fludarabine or alemtuzumab) are at highest risk for cerebral infections. The spectrum of causative organisms may vary greatly, depending on the underlying malignancy, its treatment and various other factors. Toxoplasma gondii and fungi are the leading causative organisms in patients after allogeneic SCT, but also viruses such as herpes simplex virus or JC virus may be detected in these patients. Definitive diagnosis of cerebral infection still remains a high challenge, although diagnostics have improved by the wide availability of imaging techniques and polymerase chain reaction in recent years. Novel therapeutic options are arising, particularly for fungal CNS infections. Here, we summarise aspects on epidemiology, clinical symptoms and prognosis of CNS infections in patients with malignancies. Additionally, we give an overview on the diagnostics and management of cerebral infections in these patients including evidence evaluation of efficacy of treatment.