Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Benefit of Time-of-Flight in PET: Experimental and Clinical Results

Significant improvements have made it possible to add the technology of time-of-flight (TOF) to improve PET, particularly for oncology applications. The goals of this work were to investigate the benefits of TOF in experimental phantoms and to determine how these benefits translate into improved performance for patient imaging. Methods: In this study we used a fully 3-dimensional scanner with the scintillator lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate and a system timing resolution of ∼600 ps. The data are acquired in list-mode and reconstructed with a maximum-likelihood expectation maximization algorithm; the system model includes the TOF kernel and corrections for attenuation, detector normalization, randoms, and scatter. The scatter correction is an extension of the model-based single-scatter simulation to include the time domain. Phantom measurements to study the benefit of TOF include 27-cm- and 35-cm-diameter distributions with spheres ranging in size from 10 to 37 mm. To assess the benefit of TOF PET for clinical imaging, patient studies are quantitatively analyzed. Results: The lesion phantom studies demonstrate the improved contrast of the smallest spheres with TOF compared with non-TOF and also confirm the faster convergence of contrast with TOF. These gains are evident from visual inspection of the images as well as a quantitative evaluation of contrast recovery of the spheres and noise in the background. The gains with TOF are higher for larger objects. These results correlate with patient studies in which lesions are seen more clearly and with higher uptake at comparable noise for TOF than with non-TOF. Conclusion: TOF leads to a better contrast-versus-noise trade-off than non-TOF but one that is difficult to quantify in terms of a simple sensitivity gain improvement: A single gain factor for TOF improvement does not include the increased rate of convergence with TOF nor does it consider that TOF may converge to a different contrast than non-TOF. The experimental phantom results agree with those of prior simulations and help explain the improved image quality with TOF for patient oncology studies.
Brain structural abnormalities in behavior therapy-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder revealed by voxel-based morphometry

Background Although several functional imaging studies have demonstrated that behavior therapy (BT) modifies the neural circuits involved in the pathogenesis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the structural abnormalities underlying BT-resistant OCD remain unknown. Methods In this study, we examined the existence of regional structural abnormalities in both the gray matter and the white matter of patients with OCD at baseline using voxel-based morphometry in responders (n=24) and nonresponders (n=15) to subsequent BT. Three-dimensional T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging was performed before the completion of 12 weeks of BT. Results Relative to the responders, the nonresponders exhibited significantly smaller gray matter volumes in the right ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the right orbitofrontal cortex, the right precentral gyrus, and the left anterior cingulate cortex. In addition, relative to the responders, the nonresponders exhibited significantly smaller white matter volumes in the left cingulate bundle and the left superior frontal white matter. Conclusion These results suggest that the brain structures in several areas, including the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and cingulate bundles, are related to the lack of a response to BT in patients with OCD. The use of a voxel-based morphometry approach may be advantageous to understanding differences in brain abnormalities between responders and nonresponders to BT.
Modulation of autophagy for the treatment of liver diseases

Introduction: Autophagy is a cellular process essential for survival and homeostasis that confers cellular protection toward a wide range of deleterious stimuli. It has a highly complex regulation with several autophagic proteins also belonging to other main signaling pathways as cell proliferation or apoptosis. In addition, autophagy has an important role in cell metabolism. Interest in the study of this process is rapidly rising and, in the past few years, autophagy has been implicated in a variety of hepatic diseases. Areas covered: The review covers the research and investigational use of pharmacological strategies that modify autophagy in the treatment of liver diseases. Autophagy modulation in steatosis, steatohepatitis, viral hepatitis, fibrogenesis, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and ischemia/reperfusion injury will be described, critically analyzed and discussed. Papers included in the present manuscript were selected from the PubMed search: liver + (macro)autophagy + each of the pathologies described above. Expert opinion: The complexity of autophagy creates significant controversy on the potential of its pharmacological modulation. A major requirement for drugs regulating autophagy in the treatment of liver diseases is that these should be liver-specific; moreover, they should primarily target one specific hepatic cell type.
Iterative ordered-statistic decoding for LDPC coded modulation systems

In this paper, an iterative demodulation/decoding scheme is proposed for coded modulation systems based on low density parity check (LDPC) codes of short block lengths. Here, the LDPC code is decoded by a soft-input soft-output ordered-statistic (SISO-OSD) decoder. The soft-output of the SISO-OSD is used as the a priori probabilities of the demodulator for the next iteration. Simulation results show that the error performance of the iterative demodulation/decoding ordered-statistic decoder is superior to that of the iterative demodulation/decoding sum-product decoder. The performance of the proposed system closely approaches the union bound of the maximum likelihood (ML) decoding with Gray mapping
Control of Abscisic Acid Catabolism and Abscisic Acid Homeostasis Is Important for Reproductive Stage Stress Tolerance in Cereals1[W][OA]

Drought stress at the reproductive stage causes pollen sterility and grain loss in wheat (Triticum aestivum). Drought stress induces abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis genes in anthers and ABA accumulation in spikes of drought-sensitive wheat varieties. In contrast, drought-tolerant wheat accumulates lower ABA levels, which correlates with lower ABA biosynthesis and higher ABA catabolic gene expression (ABA 8′-hydroxylase). Wheat TaABA8′OH1 deletion lines accumulate higher spike ABA levels and are more drought sensitive. ABA treatment of the spike mimics the effect of drought, causing high levels of sterility. ABA treatment represses the anther cell wall invertase gene TaIVR1, and drought-tolerant lines appeared to be more sensitive to the effect of ABA. Drought-induced sterility shows similarity to cold-induced sterility in rice (Oryza sativa). In cold-stressed rice, the rate of ABA accumulation was similar in cold-sensitive and cold-tolerant lines during the first 8 h of cold treatment, but in the tolerant line, ABA catabolism reduced ABA levels between 8 and 16 h of cold treatment. The ABA biosynthesis gene encoding 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase in anthers is mainly expressed in parenchyma cells surrounding the vascular bundle of the anther. Transgenic rice lines expressing the wheat TaABA8′OH1 gene under the control of the OsG6B tapetum-specific promoter resulted in reduced anther ABA levels under cold conditions. The transgenic lines showed that anther sink strength (OsINV4) was maintained under cold conditions and that this correlated with improved cold stress tolerance. Our data indicate that ABA and ABA 8′-hydroxylase play an important role in controlling anther ABA homeostasis and reproductive stage abiotic stress tolerance in cereals.
Autologous Intrauterine Platelet-Rich Plasma Instillation for Suboptimal Endometrium in Frozen Embryo Transfer Cycles: A Pilot Study

Introduction: This pilot study was to evaluate the effectiveness of intrauterine infusion of autologous platelet-rich plasma (PRP) in infertile women undergoing frozen embryo transfer cycles with suboptimal endometrium. Material and Methods: Intrauterine instillation of autologous PRP was done in 68 women between 22 and 40 years, over 8 months, with suboptimal endometrial growth, and patients with repeated cycle cancellations, in addition to Estradiol valerate. Frozen embryo transfer was performed when the endometrium reached an optimal pattern in terms of thickness, appearance, and vascularity. Results: The mean pre-PRP endometrial thickness (ET) was 5 mm which significantly increased to 7.22 mm post-PRP. There was a significant increase in vascularity, seen by the number of vascular signals seen on Power Doppler, reaching the zones 3 and 4 of the endometrium. The positive beta Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) rate was 60.93% and the clinical pregnancy rate was 45.31%. A total of 13 women are in the second trimester, 13 are in the first trimester with a healthy intrauterine pregnancy, one patient had an ectopic gestation, three had blighted ova, two had missed abortions, and two biochemical pregnancies. Conclusion: This study suggests that the use of autologous PRP holds promise in the treatment of women with suboptimal ET and vascularity for embryo transfer. It would help to reduce the incidence of cycle cancellations and thus even help reduce the financial and psychological burden of repeated cancelled cycles.
A 10b 100MS/s 1.13mW SAR ADC with binary-scaled error compensation

In recent years, due to the improvements in CMOS technologies, medium resolution (8 to 10b) SAR ADCs have been able to achieve sampling rates of several tens of MS/s with excellent power efficiency and small area [1]–[4]. When the sampling rate increases, the SAR ADCs suffer from settling issues. In a typical 10b 100MS/s ADC, when the sampling settling time, comparator active time and SAR logic delay are subtracted from each period, the DAC settling time has to be less than 0.4ns in each bit cycle. Such a short time interval is not sufficient for the capacitive DAC to stabilize because the increasing interconnect line impedance in advanced processes slows down the charge transfer, especially in the longest routing path of the DAC capacitor network. Furthermore, the reference voltage sinks noise and line coupling also affects the settling. A non-binary SAR can tolerate DAC settling error at the cost of increased design complexity and hardware overhead [1]. This paper reports a 10b SAR ADC that uses binary-scaled DAC networks for settling error compensation. The ADC achieves 100MS/s while consuming only 1.13mW.
Spatial and temporal dynamical heterogeneities approaching the binary colloidal glass transition

We study concentrated binary colloidal suspensions, a model system which has a glass transition as the volume fraction ϕ of particles is increased. We use confocal microscopy to directly observe particle motion within dense samples with ϕ ranging from 0.4 to 0.7. Our binary mixtures have a particle diameter ratio dS/dL = 1/1.3 and particle number ratio NS/NL = 1.56, which are chosen to inhibit crystallization and enable long-time observations. Near the glass transition we find that particle dynamics are heterogeneous in both space and time. The most mobile particles occur in spatially localized groups. The length scales characterizing these mobile regions grow slightly as the glass transition is approached, with the largest length scales seen being ∼ 4 small particle diameters. We also study temporal fluctuations using the dynamic susceptibility χ4, and find that the fluctuations grow as the glass transition is approached. Analysis of both spatial and temporal dynamical heterogeneity show that the smaller species play an important role in facilitating particle rearrangements. The glass transition in our sample occurs at ϕg ≈ 0.58, with characteristic signs of aging observed for all samples with ϕ > ϕg.
Approximate reverse k-nearest neighbor queries in general metric spaces

In this paper, we propose an approach for efficient approximative RkNN search in arbitrary metric spaces where the value of k is specified at query time. Our method uses an approximation of the nearest-neighbor-distances in order to prune the search space. In several experiments, our solution scales significantly better than existing non-approximative approaches while producing an approximation of the true query result with a high recall.
A conceptual model for characterizing the problem domain

Defining characteristics of a problem domain continues to challenge developers of visualization software although it is essential for designing both tools and resulting visualizations. Additionally, effectiveness of a visualization software tool often depends on the context of systems and actors within the domain problem. The nested blocks and guidelines model is a useful template for informing design and evaluation criteria for visualization software development because it aligns design to need. Characterizing the outermost block of the nested model—the domain problem—is challenging, mainly due to the nature of contemporary domain problems, which are dynamic and by definition difficult to problematize. We offer here our emerging conceptual model, based on the central question in our research study—what visualization works for whom and in which situation—to characterize the outermost block, the domain problem, of the nested model. We apply examples from a 3-year case study of visualization software design and development to demonstrate how the conceptual model might be used to create evaluation criteria affecting design and development of a visualization tool.
F8 genetic analysis strategies when standard approaches fail

Summary Haemophilia A is a common X-linked recessive disorder caused by mutations in F8 leading to deficiency or dysfunction of coagulant factor VIII (FVIII). Despite tremendous improvements in mutation screening methods, in a small group of patients with FVIII deficiency suffering from haemophilia A, no DNA change can be found. In these patients, analysis reveals no causal mutations even after sequencing the whole coding region of F8 including the flanking splice sites, as well as the promoter and the 3’ untranslated region (UTR). After excluding the mutations mimicking the haemophilia A phenotype in interacting partners of the FVIII protein affecting the half life and transport of the protein, mutations or rearrangements in non-coding regions of F8 have to be considered responsible for the haemophilia A phenotype. In this review, we present the experiences with molecular diagnosis of such cases and approaches to be applied for mutation negative patients.
Member ratings of health care provided by 48 physician groups.

BACKGROUND Satisfaction with health plan performance has been assessed frequently, but assessment of physician group performance is rare. OBJECTIVE To present ratings of the care provided by physician groups to enrollees in a variety of capitated health maintenance organization plans. METHODS A random sample was drawn of adult enrollees receiving managed health care from 48 physician groups in a group practice association. Each individual in the sample was mailed a 12-page questionnaire and 7093 were returned (59% response rate). The mean age of those returning the questionnaire was 51 years; 65% were women. RESULTS Reliability estimates for 6 multi-item satisfaction scales were excellent, and noteworthy differences in ratings among groups were observed. In particular, ratings of overall quality ranged from a low of 28 to a high of 68 (mean, 50; SD, 10). Average scores for physician groups were strongly correlated across all scales, but no single group scored consistently highest or lowest on the different scales. Negative ratings of care were significantly related to the following: intention to switch to another physician group, difficulty in getting appointments, lengthy waiting periods in the reception area and examination room, the inability to get consistent care from one physician for routine visits, and not being informed by the office staff when there was a delay in seeing the primary care provider. CONCLUSIONS Monitoring of health care quality at the physician group level is possible, and could be used for benchmarking, internal quality improvement, and for providing information to the public about how these physician groups will meet its needs.
Constrained steepest descent in the 2-Wasserstein metric

We study several constrained variational problems in the 2-Wasserstein metric for which the set of probability densities satisfying the constraint is not closed. For example, given a probability density F0 on d and a time-step h> 0, we seek to minimize I(F )= hS(F )+W 2 2 (F0 ,F ) over all of the probability densities F that have the same mean and variance as F0, where S(F )i sthe entropy of F . W eprove existence of minimizers. We also analyze the induced geometry of the set of densities satisfying the constraint on the variance and means, and we determine all of the geodesics on it. From this, we determine a criterion for convexity of functionals in the induced geometry. It turns out, for example, that the entropy is uniformly strictly convex on the constrained manifold, though not uniformly convex without the constraint. The problems solved here arose in a study of a variational approach to constructing and studying solutions of the nonlinear kinetic Fokker-Planck equation, which is briefly described here and fully developed in a companion paper.
Standard dosing of tacrolimus leads to overexposure in pediatric renal transplantation recipients

Abstract: Tacrolimus dosage in pediatric RTRs is empirically based on weight. There is evidence that adolescents are at greater risk of toxicity than young children on this dosing regimen. We investigated the rate of tacrolimus overexposure within the first three wk post‐transplantation in pediatric RTRs receiving tacrolimus 0.15 mg/kg twice daily. Of 63 RTRs studied, 41 (65.1%) experienced a tacrolimus level above the therapeutic range (supratherapeutic), the majority (48.8%) on days two to four post‐transplant. Patients with supratherapeutic levels were older (14.2 vs. 9.9 yr, p = 0.016), taller (146.7 vs. 126.5 cm, p = 0.029), larger (1.36 vs. 1.01 m2, p = 0.039) and heavier (44.1 vs. 29.3 kg, p = 0.043) and by day 12 were receiving much lower tacrolimus doses than those without supratherapeutic levels (0.425 vs. 0.198 mg/kg/day, p = 0.0002). Supratherapeutic levels were more common among white (British) children than other ethnic groups (74 vs. 45%, p = 0.02). There were no observed differences in rates of patient or graft survival, or acute rejection during the three‐yr study period. Adolescent patients appear to be at greater risk of excessive tacrolimus dosing on a standard regimen. We therefore outline a regimen restricting tacrolimus dosage given to larger/older patients, but emphasize the need for a prospective randomized trial to define optimal dosing.
A Comparative Study on Dynamic Scheduling of Real-Time Tasks in Multiprocessor System using Genetic Algorithms

have evolved as powerful computing tools for executing dynamic real time tasks. The continual evolutions of the multiprocessor and real-time systems in the last few decades have encouraged the research and development of a new and efficient algorithm for dynamic scheduling of real-time task in multiprocessor systems. This paper proposes a compact study on dynamic real time task scheduling in multiprocessor environment using Genetic Algorithm (GA) which is a typically NP-complete problem. GA exploits the power of parallel computing which drives the solution towards optimal one. The GA, inspired by biological genetics and the process of natural selection, comprises fixed size chromosome and biological inspired genetic operators like mutation and crossover. This paper investigates the various scheduling algorithms and compares the simulation result in terms of fitness value and the percentage of success for scheduling real time tasks.
Uncertainty in patient set-up margin analysis in radiation therapy

We investigated the uncertainty in patient set-up margin analysis with a small dataset consisting of a limited number of clinical cases over a short time period, and propose a method for determining the optimum set-up margin. Patient set-up errors from 555 registration images of 15 patients with prostate cancer were tested for normality using a quantile-quantile (Q-Q) plot and a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test with the hypothesis that the data were not normally distributed. The ranges of set-up errors include the set-up errors within the 95% interval of the entire patient data histogram, and their equivalent normal distributions were compared. The patient set-up error was not normally distributed. When the patient set-up error distribution was assumed to have a normal distribution, an underestimate of the actual set-up error occurred in some patients but an overestimate occurred in others. When using a limited dataset for patient set-up errors, which consists of only a small number of the cases over a short period of time in a clinical practice, the 2.5% and 97.5% intervals of the actual patient data histogram from the percentile method should be used for estimating the set-up margin. Since set-up error data is usually not normally distributed, these intervals should provide a more accurate estimate of set-up margin. In this way, the uncertainty in patient set-up margin analysis in radiation therapy can be reduced.
Doubling the Dose of Inhaled Corticosteroid to Prevent Asthma Exacerbations: Randomised Controlled Trial Cost-effectiveness Analysis of Early Intervention with Budesonide in Mild Persistent Asthma

Serevent, albuterol, and Qvar) were obtained from the manufacturers and studied in the laboratory. They evaluated the MDIs to determine how many actuations could be emitted and obtained weights during the process. They evaluated the usefulness of floating the MDIs in water to determine if they were full or empty, as has been suggested in the past for tracking the content of MDIs. Results. The survey revealed that 72% of subjects determined that their MDI was empty when they could no longer hear a sound when actuated. Another 20% said they replaced it when it was " old " without giving specific details , although most said " within a month or so " or " after a while. " Four patients stated that they were told to float their MDI in water to determine if it was full (sinks to the bottom) or empty (floats), although none had actually done it. The majority (78%) said that they knew they were supposed to shake the MDI before using it, but only half shook the MDI when their technique was evaluated later. In the laboratory, MDIs had similar flotation patterns, with mean flotation angles of 27.6 to 31.7° when empty. Water obstructed the valve or collected near the valve during this procedure 27% of the time. The chlorofluorocarbon inhal-ers (Flovent, Serevent, and albuterol) had a mean of 86% more audible puffs and Qvar 54% more than the stated manufacturer actuations. Shaking the MDI before actua-tion increased the doses available for the chlorofluorocar-bon inhalers significantly. Conclusions. Most patients studied did not know how to tell if their MDI was empty, and many did not shake the MDI before actuation, which can limit the amount of drug delivered. These results may in part explain the poor adherence with refills for MDIs, because patients may not realize that they are not receiving a full dose of active drug (because all of the MDIs studied had significantly more actuations than noted on the canister), which the authors termed " pseudo-adherence. " The only way to truly track the number of remaining doses in MDIs is to count each dose. Most MDIs will emit more drug doses if the device is shaken before actuation. Floating MDIs in water is not accurate for assessing remaining doses and often will clog the valve. Reviewer's Comments. This article demonstrates one of the limitations of MDIs in the inability of …