Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Colorectal Cancer in Patients 20 Years Old or Less in Taiwan

Background. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is predominantly a disease of the elderly population, but it sometimes occurs in young patients. The diagnosis of CRC in youngsters is often overlooked by physicians or presentation may be delayed. Methods. With assistance from the cancer registry center of Taipei Veterans General Hospital, we collected data on all types of colorectal malignancy, including carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, or lymphoma in patients aged 20 or younger. All available medical charts and pathologic specimens were reviewed in detail. Results. A total of 28 cases were analyzed. The leading presenting symptom was abdominal pain (92%). The locations of the primary tumors were evenly distributed, and the major histologic type was predominantly adenocarcinoma. However, the proportion of mucinous adenocarcinoma was higher than that in the older population. Most of the cases were advanced (11 tumors were classified as Dukes stage C and another 11 as Dukes stage D). The overall 5-year survival rate was 21%. Conclusions. Despite the rarity of CRC during the first two decades of life, physicians need to be aware of the possibility and to evaluate suggestive signs and symptoms by colonoscopy or barium enema. Family history of CRC, inflammatory bowel disease, previous polyps, or familial polyposis did not play a crucial role in this group of young patients.
Comparison of Surgical Stress Index-guided Analgesia with Standard Clinical Practice during Routine General Anesthesia: A Pilot Study

Background:Surgical stress index (SSI), a novel multivariate index, has recently been proven to react well to surgical nociceptive stimuli and analgesic drug concentration changes during general anesthesia. We investigated the feasibility of application of SSI for guidance of remifentanil administration during propofol–remifentanil anesthesia. Methods:Eighty patients scheduled for elective ear–nose–throat surgery were randomized into two groups, SSI-guided analgesia group (SSI group) and standard practice analgesia group (control group). In both groups, anesthesia was maintained with a propofol target-controlled infusion and adjusted stepwise by 0.5 &mgr;g/ml to keep bispectral index values between 40 and 60. In the SSI group, the predicted effect-site concentration of remifentanil was adjusted stepwise by 1 ng/ml to keep SSI values between 20 and 50, whereas in the control group, predicted effect-site concentration of remifentanil was adjusted according to traditional inadequate analgesia criteria. Anesthetics consumption, recovery times, and incidence of unwanted events were recorded. Results:Remifentanil consumption (average normalized infusion rate) was lower in the SSI group than in the control group (mean ± SD, 9.5 ± 3.8 &mgr;g · kg−1 · h−1 vs. 12.3 ± 5.2 &mgr;g · kg−1 · h−1; P < 0.05). The number of unwanted events was less in the SSI group (84) than in the control group (556; P < 0.01). Recovery times were comparable between groups. No patient reported intraoperative recall. Conclusions:SSI-guided anesthesia resulted in lower remifentanil consumption, more stable hemodynamics, and a lower incidence of unwanted events.
Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes Among Older Women with HIV.

OBJECTIVES To inform the development of HIV care strategies for older women with HIV infection, an understudied group, we compared the psychosocial, behavioral, and clinical characteristics of HIV-positive women aged ≥50 (older women) with those aged 18-49 (younger women). METHODS We examined factors among HIV-positive women in care using data from the 2009 through 2013 cycles of a nationally representative sample of HIV-positive adults in care (Medical Monitoring Project). We compared psychosocial, clinical, and behavioral factors among women aged ≥50 years at interview versus those aged <50 years. We calculated weighted frequency estimates and performed logistic regression to compute adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the comparison of characteristics among women aged ≥50 versus <50 years. RESULTS Of 22,145 participants, 6186 were women; 40.7% (CI 39.1-42.3) were ≥50 years, and 32.7% of older women reported being sexually active. Compared with women <50 years, women aged ≥50 years were more likely to be dose adherent (aPR = 1.19; CI 1.07-1.33), prescribed antiretroviral therapy and have sustained viral load suppression (aPR = 1.03; CI 1.00-1.18), and were less likely to report any depression (aPR = 0.92; CI 0.86-0.99), to report condomless sex with a negative or unknown partner if sexually active (aPR = 0.56; CI 0.48-0.67), and to have received HIV/sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention counseling from a healthcare provider (aPR = 0.82; CI 0.76-0.88). CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that older women in HIV care have more favorable outcomes in some clinical areas, but may warrant increased HIV/STI prevention counseling from their care providers, especially if sexually active.
Structured Sparse Subspace Clustering: A Joint Affinity Learning and Subspace Clustering Framework

Subspace clustering refers to the problem of segmenting data drawn from a union of subspaces. State-of-the-art approaches for solving this problem follow a two-stage approach. In the first step, an affinity matrix is learned from the data using sparse or low-rank minimization techniques. In the second step, the segmentation is found by applying spectral clustering to this affinity. While this approach has led to the state-of-the-art results in many applications, it is suboptimal, because it does not exploit the fact that the affinity and the segmentation depend on each other. In this paper, we propose a joint optimization framework — Structured Sparse Subspace Clustering (S3C) — for learning both the affinity and the segmentation. The proposed S3C framework is based on expressing each data point as a structured sparse linear combination of all other data points, where the structure is induced by a norm that depends on the unknown segmentation. Moreover, we extend the proposed S3C framework into Constrained S3C (CS3C) in which available partial side-information is incorporated into the stage of learning the affinity. We show that both the structured sparse representation and the segmentation can be found via a combination of an alternating direction method of multipliers with spectral clustering. Experiments on a synthetic data set, the Extended Yale B face data set, the Hopkins 155 motion segmentation database, and three cancer data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
Exploitation of a natural pasture by wild horses: comparison between nutritive characteristics of the land and the nutrient requirements of the herds over a 2-year period.

In the Molise region (Italy), some autochthonous populations are still bred and, between them, some wild horses named 'Pentro horses. ' The breeding area is a natural pasture. It is 2200 ha extended including a broad plane surrounded by wooden hills. The aim of this research was to determine the nutritional characteristics of this area over a 2-year period to improve the management of the herd and to define the stocking rate in relation to the forage production in terms of production and quality. The forage samples were collected over two successive years during the grazing period (May to October) from five experimental areas and analysed for dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), crude fibre (CF), neutral-detergent fibre (NDF), acid-detergent fibre (ADF), acid-detergent lignin (ADL) and gross energy (GE). Horse feed units (HFU) and horse-digestible crude protein (HDCP) were also predicted. Data were analysed with a one-way ANOVA test using month and area as factors. The DM, HFU and HDCP total production was determined to be compared with the total nutrient requirements of the herds from May to October. The results show that seasonal and yearly climatic variations significantly affect chemical composition and nutritive value of the pasture. The parameters most influenced were DM, CP, ADF and to a less extent NDF, while OM, ADL and GE show smaller differences during the observed period. The results show a low production per ha; nevertheless, because of the low stocking rate (0.3 to 0.6 head per ha), nutrient production meets the nutrient requirements of the horses regarding DM and energy. The differences among the areas have to be ascribed to the different botanical compositions and to the different draining capacity of the soil, and also in this case the greatest variations are for DM, CP and ADF.
The uniqueness and complexity of kampung city Bustaman Semarang Indonesia

The purpose of this study is to describe the uniqueness and complexity of one village town Bustaman Semarang Indonesia. This research is in the domain of qualitative research paradigm with ethnography research strategy. The critical ethnography technique is chosen with the consideration of the purpose of this research, that is besides describing also the analysing urban spatial condition over its complexity. Bustaman town village has artifacts outdated and local economic activities namely culinary processed goat meat. Kampung Bustaman shows the common character as a city hometown, which is chaotic and shabby. Some artifacts and historical value of Bustaman village as well as community culture become potential to be developed and conserved. But for that the quality of Bustaman village hometown should be improved. Bustaman's urban halls are under distress by changes in urban modernization, including the pattern of life of Bustaman villagers. However, the existing phenomenon that the potential of local and cultural communities are still able to survive and exist, within the limitations of space and resources available. The process of culinary production of goat meat, the limitation of the kampong space, the social awareness of the villagers, the role of community leaders, and the necessities of daily life are the drivers of the complexity of Bustaman village space. The village road corridor and the house terrace become the victim room for all the activities of the town. Clutter seems clear can be found in every corner of Bustaman village space. Kampung Bustaman can be categorized as a spontaneous and compact informal village, but still survive on the urban spatial locality.
Mortality in Geriatric Psychiatric Inpatients

Objective: This study investigated the deaths of patients sixty-five and older on a psychiatric ward to determine the mortality rate, the characteristics of illness, and the cause of death. Methods: We analyzed the case record of patients sixty-five and older who had died during hospitalization on a psychiatric ward during a seventeen-year period. Case data was collected by review of chart records. Results: The mortality rate in the patients sixty-five and older was 18/1208 (1.5%). Eight of these eighteen patients died of pneumonia. Mortality in the acutely ill geropsychiatric inpatients was difficult to predict. Age, sex, and diagnosis did not predict mortality. Conclusions: To reduce mortality, especially in male veterans, management of geropsychiatric patients should include early recognition of pneumonia symptoms, especially for patients with history of pulmonary disease.
Emotional distress about weight gain and attitude to goal achievement failure as predictors of self-regulatory efficacy: Does ethnicity make a difference?

In spite of alarming increases in obesity, little is known concerning the influence of emotional distress about weight gain on perceived self-efficacy in maintaining self-control when controlling for racial identity. This study found that emotional distress toward goal achievement failure mediated the influence of ethnicity on perceived self-efficacy in resisting eating temptations. White females reporting higher emotional distress about weight gain than their black counterparts displayed lower self-regulatory efficacy, particularly when negative emotions were involved. Negative attitudes toward goal achievement failure among whites played a critical role in undermining perceived self-regulatory efficacy. The implications for public policy are discussed.
Contemporary treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus: an update for clinicians

The prognosis for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) has improved significantly, with 20-year survival now approximately 80% owing partly to effective treatment. SLE treatment has evolved from the use of conventional drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and corticosteroids, nonspecific immunosuppressants including mycophenolate mofetil, to targeting selective components of the immune cascade with a view to increased efficacy, tolerability and safety profile. These novel treatments include B-cell-depleting antibodies and fusion proteins that block the costimulatory pathways of B and T cells. A discussion of these pharmacological options and ongoing research forms the basis of this review.
A Clustering-Oriented Closeness Measure Based on Neighborhood Chain and Its Application in the Clustering Ensemble Framework Based on the Fusion of Different Closeness Measures

Closeness measures are crucial to clustering methods. In most traditional clustering methods, the closeness between data points or clusters is measured by the geometric distance alone. These metrics quantify the closeness only based on the concerned data points’ positions in the feature space, and they might cause problems when dealing with clustering tasks having arbitrary clusters shapes and different clusters densities. In this paper, we first propose a novel Closeness Measure between data points based on the Neighborhood Chain (CMNC). Instead of using geometric distances alone, CMNC measures the closeness between data points by quantifying the difficulty for one data point to reach another through a chain of neighbors. Furthermore, based on CMNC, we also propose a clustering ensemble framework that combines CMNC and geometric-distance-based closeness measures together in order to utilize both of their advantages. In this framework, the “bad data points” that are hard to cluster correctly are identified; then different closeness measures are applied to different types of data points to get the unified clustering results. With the fusion of different closeness measures, the framework can get not only better clustering results in complicated clustering tasks, but also higher efficiency.
A high-precision continuous measurement system for the atmospheric O_2/N_2 ratio at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard and preliminary observational results

With the aim of carrying out detailed monitoring of temporal variations in the atmospheric O2/N2 ratio at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, we have developed a new highprecision continuous measurement system, with a precision of better than ±4.0 per meg, using a fuel-cell O2 analyzer. Considering the remoteness of the observation site, special attention was paid to the measurement system, in that: (1) the system can be controlled remotely from Japan using the Internet; (2) all of the data output from the system can be monitored and collected in Japan via the Internet; (3) a specially designed water trap based on a Stirling cooler is employed to automate the removal of water vapor from the sample air; (4) the CO2 concentration can also be measured; and (5) it is possible to operate the system for one year without having to manually replace the high-pressure cylinders of standard gas and reference air. Systematic observation of the atmospheric O2/N2 ratio using the newly developed measurement system began at the site on November 8, 2012. By 1 情報・システム研究機構国立極地研究所. National Institute of Polar Research, Research Organization of Information and Systems, Midori-cho 10–3, Tachikawa, Tokyo 190-8518. 2 東北大学大学院理学研究科大気海洋変動観測研究センター. Center for Atmospheric and Oceanic Studies, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8578. 3 総合研究大学院大学複合科学研究科極域科学専攻. Department of Polar Science, School of Multidisciplinary Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Midori-cho 10-3, Tachikawa, Tokyo 190-8518. * Corresponding author. E-mail: goto.daisuke@nipr.ac. jp 南極資料,Vol. 57,No. 1,17-27,2013 Nankyoku Shiryo^ (Antarctic Record), Vol. 57, No. 1, 17-27, 2013 C 2013 National Institute of Polar Research 18 D. Goto, S. Morimoto, S. Aoki and T. Nakazawa analyzing the observational results obtained over the first month, the effectiveness of the measurement system was verified, and the causes of characteristic temporal variations in the observed atmospheric O2/N2 ratio were examined.
STABILITY RESULTS INVOLVING SURFACE AREA MEASURES OF CONVEX BODIES

We strengthen some known stability results from the Brunn-Minkowski theory and obtain new results of similar types. These results concern pairs of convex bodies for which either surface area measures, or counterparts of such measures in the Brunn-Minkowski-Firey theory, or geometrically significant transforms of such measures, are close to each other. MSC 2000: 52A20, 52A40.
Physical Map and Genome Sequencing Survey of Mycoplasma haemofelis (Haemobartonella felis)

ABSTRACT Mycoplasma haemofelis is an uncultivable red-cell pathogen of cats. Isolated M. haemofelis DNA was used to create a bacterial artificial chromosome library and physical map. Random sequencing of this material revealed 75 genes that had not been previously reported for M. haemofelis or any other hemotrophic mycoplasma.
Using Branch Predictors and Variable Encoding for On-the-Fly Program Tracing

Unobtrusive capturing of program execution traces in real-time is crucial for debugging many embedded systems. However, tracing even limited program segments is often cost-prohibitive, requiring wide trace ports and large on-chip trace buffers. This paper introduces a new cost-effective technique for capturing and compressing program execution traces on-the-fly. It relies on branch predictor-like structures in the trace module and corresponding software modules in the debugger to significantly reduce the number of events that need to be streamed out of the target system. Coupled with an effective variable encoding scheme that adapts to changing program patterns, our technique requires merely 0.029 bits per instruction of trace port bandwidth, providing a 34-fold improvement over the commercial state-of-the-art and a five-fold improvement over academic proposals, at the low cost of under 5,000 logic gates.
Throughput-Optimal Configuration of Fixed Wireless Networks

In this paper, we address the following two questions concerning the capacity and configuration of fixed wireless networks: (i) given a set of wireless nodes with arbitrary but fixed locations, and a set of data flows, what is the max-min achievable throughput? and (ii) how should the network be configured to achieve the optimum? We consider these questions from a networking standpoint assuming point-to-point links, and employ a rigorous physical layer model to model conflict relationships between them. Since we seek capacity results, we assume that the network is operated using an appropriate schedule of conflict-free link activations. We develop and investigate a novel optimization framework to determine the optimal throughput and configuration, i.e., flow routes, link activation schedules and physical layer parameters. Determining the optimal throughput is a computationally hard problem, in general. However, using a smart enumerative technique we obtain numerical results for several different scenarios of interest. We obtain several important insights into the structure of the optimal routes, schedules and physical layer parameters. Besides determining the achievable throughput, we believe that our optimization-based framework can also be used as a tool, for configuring scheduled wireless networks, such as those based on IEEE 802.16.
Backward-in-time input reconstruction

Input reconstruction is the problem of reconstructing unknown inputs to the system, be it deterministic or stochastic or a combination of both, from knowledge of plant model and the output measurements alone. Being a fundamental and long-standing problem, the literature on this topic is extensive, but is also somewhat fragmented. Furthermore, connections between feasibility of input reconstruction and zeros of the system have been established in the literature. In this paper, we explore possible methods to reconstruct inputs for systems with non-minimum phase zeros. Although the existing literature suggests that in the presence of non-minimum phase zeros, any estimator will yield an error that grows in time, we are able to overcome this problem by developing an estimator that goes backward in time.
Absorption of Vitamin A and Carotenoids by the Enterocyte: Focus on Transport Proteins

Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in most developing countries, especially in children and pregnant women. It is thus a priority in health policy to improve preformed vitamin A and/or provitamin A carotenoid status in these individuals. A more accurate understanding of the molecular mechanisms of intestinal vitamin A absorption is a key step in this direction. It was long thought that β-carotene (the main provitamin A carotenoid in human diet), and thus all carotenoids, were absorbed by a passive diffusion process, and that preformed vitamin A (retinol) absorption occurred via an unidentified energy-dependent transporter. The discovery of proteins able to facilitate carotenoid uptake and secretion by the enterocyte during the past decade has challenged established assumptions, and the elucidation of the mechanisms of retinol intestinal absorption is in progress. After an overview of vitamin A and carotenoid fate during gastro-duodenal digestion, our focus will be directed to the putative or identified proteins participating in the intestinal membrane and cellular transport of vitamin A and carotenoids across the enterocyte (i.e., Scavenger Receptors or Cellular Retinol Binding Proteins, among others). Further progress in the identification of the proteins involved in intestinal transport of vitamin A and carotenoids across the enterocyte is of major importance for optimizing their bioavailability.