Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reducing the average complexity of ML detection using semidefinite relaxation

Maximum likelihood (ML) detection of symbols transmitted over a MIMO channel is generally a difficult problem due to its NP-hard nature. However, not every instance of the detection problem is equally hard. Thus, the average complexity of an ML detector may be significantly smaller than its worst-case counterpart. This is typically true in the high SNR regime where the received signals are closer to the noise free transmitted signals. Herein, a method which may be used to lower the average complexity of any ML detector is proposed. The method is based on the ability to verify if a symbol estimate is ML, using an optimality condition provided by the near-ML semidefinite relaxation technique. The average complexity reduction advantage of the proposed method is confirmed by numerical results.
Interim FDG‐PET has no value in selecting patients who require treatment modification in both early‐ and advanced‐stage Hodgkin lymphoma: response to Adams and Kwee

trial of 355 patients. British Journal of Haematology, https://doi.org/10.1111/bjh.14734 [Epub ahead of print]. Engert, A. , Plutschow, A. , Eich, H.T. , Lohri, A. , Dorken, B. , Borchmann, P., Berger, B. , Greil, R. , Willborn, K.C. , Wilhelm, M. , Debus, J., Eble, M.J., Sokler, M. , Ho, A. , Rank, A. , Ganser, A. , Trumper, L. , Bokemeyer, C. , Kirchner, H. , Schubert, J., Kral, Z. , Fuchs, M. , Muller-Hermelink, H.K. , Muller, R.P. & Diehl, V. (2010) Reduced treatment intensity in patients with early-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma. New England Journal of Medicine, 363, 640–652. Pileri, S.A. , Ascani, S. , Leoncini, L. , Sabattini, E. , Zinzani, P.L. , Piccaluga, P.P., Pileri, A. Jr, Giunti, M. , Falini, B. , Bolis, G.B. & Stein, H. (2002) Hodgkin’s lymphoma: the pathologist’s viewpoint. Journal of Clinical Pathology, 55, 162–176. Sickinger, M.T. , von Tresckow, B. , Kobe, C. , Borchmann, P., Engert, A. & Skoetz, N. (2016) PET-adapted omission of radiotherapy in early stage Hodgkin lymphoma-a systematic review and meta-analysis. Critical Reviews in Oncology Hematology, 101, 86–92.
Cytotoxicity of paraquat in freshly isolated rat hepatocytes: effects of L‐carnitine

The effects of L‐carnitine, a mitochondrial carrier of fatty acids, on paraquat (PQ) cytotoxicity in freshly isolated rat hepatocytes were studied. Addition of PQ (10 mM) to hepatocytes resulted in a time‐dependent depletion of intracellular glutathione (GSH) accompanied by an increase in accumulation of malondialdehyde (MDA) in the incubation medium which preceeded to a loss of cell viability. Pretreatment of hepatocytes with L‐carnitine (50 mM) alone did not affect cell viability or intracellular levels of GSH, or accumulation of MDA in the medium during the incubation period; however, pretreatment with L‐carnitine 30 min prior to PQ addition did promote the depletion of intracellular GSH and MDA accumulation induced by PQ, and ultimately enhanced the cytotoxicity of PQ.
Collagen fragment biomarkers as serological biomarkers of lean body mass – a biomarker pilot study from the DAHANCA25B cohort and matched controls

Loss of muscle mass and function is an important complication to ageing and a range of pathologies, including, but not restricted to, cancer, organ failures, and sepsis. A number of interventions have been proposed ranging from exercise to anabolic pharmacological therapy, with varying success. Easily applicable serological biomarkers of lean and/or muscle mass and change therein would benefit monitoring of muscle mass during muscle atrophy as well as during recovery. We set out to validate if novel peptide biomarkers derived from Collagen III and VI were markers of lean body mass (LBM) or change therein in head and neck cancer patients in the Danish Head and Neck Cancer Group(DAHANCA) 25B cohort subjected to resistance training as well as in an age‐matched and gender‐matched control group.
On the Utility of Systematicity: Understanding Tradeoffs between Redundancy and Commitment in Partial-ordering Planning

Although the idea of generating plans through nonlinear or partially ordered partially instantiated (POPI) planningI has been around for almost twenty years, it is only recently that the search space characteristics of POPI planners have received particular attention. A big thrust in this work has been on reducing the redundancy in the search space of POPI planners. This was largely motivated by the belief that redundancy reduction will lead to improvements in planning efficiency[10, 8]. One approach towards redundancy elimination, that turned out to be particularly influential (as evidencedby several closely related extensions [8, 18, 16, 2, 17]), was that of McAllester’s [8]. McAllester showed that it is possible to design a POPI planner that is systematic in the strong sense that it never visits two equivalent plans or plans having overlapping linearizations. Such systematic planners were claimed to be more efficient than planners that admit redundancy in their search space. While search space redundancy is an important factor affecting the efficiency of a P O PI planner, another (perhaps) equally important one is the level of commitment in the planner. After all, avoiding premature commitment was one of the primary motivations for POPI planning. There is a tradeoff between the redundancy elimination and least commitment, in that often the redundancy is eliminated at the expense of increased commitment in the planner. For example, McAllester’s planner achieves systematicity by keeping track of the causal structures of the plans generated during search, and ensuring that each branch of the search space commits to and protects mutually exclusive causal structures for the partial plans. We will see that such protection amounts to a strong form of premature commitment, which increases the amount of backtracking as well as the solution depth, and can have an adverse effect on the performance of the planner. In this paper we shall argue that the performance of a POPI planner depends more closely on the way it deals with the tradeoff between redundancy and commitment, than with the systematicity of its search. We will start with a rational reconstruction of the motivations behind systematicity in POPI planning and show that systematicity is just one extreme solution for the tradeoff between redundancy and commitment. We will show that there are a spectrum of solutions to this tradeoff, and identify the dimensions along which they vary. We will explore the relative utility of the different solutions through a comparative study of seven planners that fall at different points on the spectrum. Our studies show that
Fatty acid translocase / CD 36 mediates the uptake of palmitate by type II pneumocytes

Guthmann, Florian, Renate Haupt, A. Cornelis Looman, Friedrich Spener, and Bernd Rüstow. Fatty acid translocase/CD36 mediates the uptake of palmitate by type II pneumocytes. Am. J. Physiol. 277 (Lung Cell. Mol. Physiol. 21): L191–L196, 1999. —Type II pneumocytes, which synthesize, store, and secrete pulmonary surfactant, require exogenous fatty acids, in particular palmitic acid, for maximum surfactant synthesis. The uptake of palmitate by type II pneumocytes is thought to be protein mediated, but the protein involved has not been characterized. Here we show by RT-PCR and Northern blot analysis that rat type II pneumocytes express the mRNA for fatty acid translocase (FAT/ CD36), a membrane-associated protein that is known to facilitate the uptake of fatty acids into adipocytes. The deduced amino acid sequence from rat type II pneumocytes reveals 98% identity to the FAT/CD36 sequence obtained from rat adipocytes. The uptake of palmitate by type II pneumocytes follows Michaelis-Menten kinetics (MichaelisMenten constant 5 11.9 6 1.8 nM; maximum velocity 5 62.7 6 5.8 pmol ·min21 ·5 3 105 pneumocytes21) and decreases reversibly under conditions of ATP depletion to 35% of control uptake. Incubation of cells at 0°C inhibited the uptake of palmitate almost completely, whereas depletion of potassium was without effect. Preincubation of the cells with bromobimane or phloretin decreases the uptake of palmitate significantly as does preincubation with sulfo-N-succinimidyl oleate, the specific inhibitor of FAT/CD36 (C. M. Harmon, P. Luce, A. H. Beth, and N. A. Abumrad. J. Membr. Biol. 121: 261–268, 1991). From these data, we conclude that FAT/ CD36 is expressed in type II pneumocytes and mediates the uptake of palmitate in a saturable and energy-dependent manner. The data suggest that the uptake process is independent of the formation of coated pits and endocytotic vesicles.
Haplotype sharing correlation analysis using family data: A comparison with family‐based association test in the presence of allelic heterogeneity

The haplotype‐sharing correlation (HSC) method for association analysis using family data is revisited by introducing a permutation procedure for estimating region‐wise significance at each marker on a study segment. In simulation studies, the HSC method has a correct type 1 error rate in both unstructured and structured populations. The HSC signals on disease segments occur in the vicinity of a true disease locus on a restricted region without recombination hotspots. However, the peak signal may not pinpoint the true disease location in a small region with dense markers. The HSC method is shown to have higher power than single‐ and multilocus family‐based association test (FBAT) methods when the true disease locus is unobserved among the study markers, and especially under conditions of weak linkage disequilibrium and multiple ancestral disease alleles. These simulation results suggest that the HSC method has the capacity to identify true disease‐associated segments under allelic heterogeneity that go undetected by the FBAT method that compares allelic or haplotypic frequencies. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Tree Diversity in Tropical Rain Forests: A Validation of the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis

The “intermediate disturbance hypothesis,” which postulates maximum diversity at intermediate regimes of disturbance, has never been clearly proved to apply to species-rich tropical forest tree communities and to local-scale canopy disturbances that modify light environments. This hypothesis was tested on a sample of 17,000 trees in a Guianan forest, 10 years after a silvicultural experiment that added to natural treefall gaps a wide range of disturbance intensities. Species richness, standardized to eliminate density effects, peaked at intermediate disturbance levels, particularly when disturbance intensity was estimated through the percentage of stems of strongly light-dependent species.
Internal and external validation of the NOSEP prediction score for nosocomial sepsis in neonates*

Objective To evaluate the performance of a scoring system (NOSEP) to predict nosocomial sepsis in neonates at the hospital where the score was developed (internal validation) and in an independent data set from other centers (external validation). Design Multiple center prospective cohort study. Setting Six neonatal intensive care units from the Flanders in Belgium. Patients We analyzed two groups of patients: 62 episodes of presumed nosocomial sepsis in the internal validation cohort and 93 episodes of presumed nosocomial sepsis in a multiple center external validation cohort. Interventions Assessment of the predictive power of the NOSEP score 24 hrs preceding sepsis workup and the patients’ basic demographic characteristics and co-morbidity was performed. Diagnosis of nosocomial sepsis and the microbiology results were registered. Main results The NOSEP score’s discriminative capability was very good in the internal validation (area under receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.73 ± 0.08 [sem]). The NOSEP score performed satisfactory in the external validation (area under receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.66 ± 0.06). The calibration capability in both validation sets as measured by goodness-of-fit tests (internal validation, p = .56; external validation, p = .48) was good. An improvement of the NOSEP score was obtained for the external centers by redefining the cut-off of the items of the NOSEP score (area under receiver operating characteristic curve for NOSEP-NEW-I = 0.71 ± 0.05) or adding co-morbidity factors (area under receiver operating characteristic curve for NOSEP-NEW-II = 0.82 ± 0.04), with good calibration performance (goodness-of-fit test, p > .50). Finally, the fit of the NOSEP score demonstrated no significant variation across subgroups of patients. Conclusions The predictive power of the original NOSEP score is very good in neonates at the original neonatal intensive care unit. In other neonatal intensive care units, its discriminatory performance is satisfactory but could be improved after modification of the variables in the model or adding additional variables. To use such a NOSEP score in other neonatal intensive care units, its accuracy has to be validated and adjusted if necessary.
Neonatal staff and advanced practice nurses' perceptions of bereavement/end-of-life care of families of critically ill and/or dying infants.

BACKGROUND Parents need compassionate care when an infant dies. Nurses can provide such care and possibly facilitate grieving, yet often have inadequate preparation in bereavement/end-of-life care. OBJECTIVE To describe neonatal nurses' perceptions of bereavement/end-of-life care of families of critically ill and/or dying infants. METHODS A cross-sectional, descriptive, correlational mailed survey design was used. The 55-item Bereavement End-of-Life Attitudes About Care: Neonatal Nurses Scale containing 4 sections (comfort, roles, involvement, and demographics) was mailed to 240 hospitals in the United States. RESULTS The final response rate was 52% (190 completed data sets from 125 hospitals). Respondents were comfortable with many aspects of bereavement/end-of-life care. Comfort and roles scores correlated significantly with number of years as a neonatal intensive care nurse. Respondents agreed about many important aspects of their roles with patients' families, especially the importance of providing daily support to the families. Most respondents identified caring for a dying infant, the actual death of an infant, and language or cultural differences as influential factors in the level of their involvement with families. CONCLUSIONS Education on bereavement/end-of-life care could affect nurses' comfort with caring for families of critically ill and/or dying infants. Additional education on cultural competence would be helpful. Educators must promote the inclusion of content on bereavement/end-of-life care in nursing curricula. Finally, researchers must focus more attention on factors that promote and inhibit bereavement/end-of-life care of families of critically ill and/or dying infants.
The effects of radicular dentine treated with double antibiotic paste and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid on the attachment and proliferation of dental pulp stem cells.

AIM This study explored the effects of dentine treated with two concentrations of double antibiotic paste (DAP) and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) on the attachment and proliferation of dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs). MATERIALS AND METHODS Radicular dentine samples were prepared with identical dimensions and randomized into six groups (n = 4). Four groups were treated with double antibiotic paste (DAP) at concentrations of 500 mg ml(-1) or 1 mg ml(-1) with or without EDTA. The other two groups were treated with EDTA only or received no treatment. DPSCs were seeded on each dentine sample (10 000 cells per sample). Lactate dehydrogenase activity assays were used to calculate the attached DPSCs after 1 day of incubation. Water soluble tetrazolium assays were performed to investigate DPSCs proliferation on the treated dentine samples after three additional days of incubation. Two-way anova followed by Tukey-Kramer tests was used for statistical analyses (α = 0.05). RESULTS Dentine treated with 1 or 500 mg ml(-1) of DAP followed by EDTA caused significant increases in DPSCs attachment compared to the dentine treated with the DAP alone. The 500 mg ml(-1) of DAP with or without EDTA caused significant reductions in DPSCs proliferation. However, the treatment of dentine with 1 mg ml(-1) of DAP did not have significant negative effects on DPSCs proliferation regardless of the use of EDTA. CONCLUSION The use of 1 mg ml(-1) of DAP followed by 10 min of irrigation with EDTA in endodontic regeneration procedure may have no negative effects on the attachment and proliferation of DPSCs.
3D MR sialography protocol for postradiotherapy follow‐up of the salivary duct system

To develop and evaluate an MR sialography protocol that reproducibly images the parotid and submandibular ducts over time, in 3D. Such a protocol is needed in order to investigate the possible radiation‐induced changes to the salivary ducts in patients receiving radiotherapy to the head‐and‐neck.
Epidermal Growth Factor Induces Glucose Storage in Transgenic 3T3-L1 Adipocytes Overexpressing Epidermal Growth Factor Receptors

3T3-L1 adipocytes represent an established physiological model for studying glucose uptake and storage. Overexpression of epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptors in these cells (200,000–250,000 receptors per cell) confers EGF-inducible GLUT4-mediated glucose uptake (17). We now report that EGF receptor (EGFR)-mediated signals can induce incorporation of glucose into glycogen and lipids in these cells. Incorporation into lipids was stimulated to similar levels by insulin or EGF in adipocytes expressing full-length (wild type) EGFR (2.05 ± 0.26-fold for insulin vs. 2.28 ± 0.15-fold for EGF). EGF induced incorporation into glycogen at roughly 60% of the level of insulin (4.53 ± 0.57-fold for insulin vs. 2.76 ± 0.25-fold for EGF); this corresponded with similarly lower levels of glycogen synthase activation by EGF relative to insulin stimulation. EGFR kinase activity was required for induced storage because a kinase-inactive (M721) EGFR failed to stimulate glucose incorporation into glycogen or lipids. EGFRs that lack all or part of the unique EGFR COOH-terminal tail induced glucose incorporation at levels similar to that stimulated by full-length (wild type) EGFR. Thus, domains in the COOH-terminal tail of the EGFR, which are necessary for stimulating glucose transport, are not required for signaling EGF-induced glucose storage. EGF-induced glucose storage did not require de novo protein synthesis, suggesting that EGFR signaling uses existing pathways in the adipocytes. These data demonstrate that signaling pathways for EGFR-mediated glucose storage and GLUT4-mediated glucose transport diverge at the receptor level. Thus, EGF-induced glucose storage can be achieved in the absence of induced GLUT4-mediated glucose transport.
Enrichment of high‐quality spermatozoa in bovine semen: relative effectiveness of three filtration matrixes

Summary. To be practical, any method for improving bull semen must yield a large quantity of motile spermatozoa. Some separation methods based on physical properties, e.g. filtration, chromatography, centrifugation, washing and pooling, have been reported as satisfactory, but generally are not repeatable. Nevertheless, filtration methods appear to allow the attainment of an acceptable number of spermatozoa, thus allowing such a technique to be introduced in the production of standard bovine semen doses for artificial insemination. The aim of this work was to evaluate systematically the relative effects of three filtration matrixes (silica oxide, glass beads or Sephadexä™) on the improvement of whole ejaculate quality. Analysis of the type of matrix and the volume and height of the filtration column was performed. The only characteristic of the columns that appears to influence ejaculate quality after filtering is the matrix volume. While all matrixes produced improvement of semen quality, SephadexTM was better than the other matrixes tested. An explanation for the mechanism of column filtration is proposed.
The beneficial effects of metformin on cancer prevention and therapy: a comprehensive review of recent advances

Abstract Metformin is a widely used drug in today’s prescriptions by physicians due to its specific effects in treating and curing type II diabetes. Diabetes is a common disease that may occur throughout human life, and can increase the likelihood of the occurrence of various types of cancer, such as colon, rectum, pancreas and liver cancers, compared to non-diabetic patients. Metformin inhibits mTOR activity by activating ATM (ataxia telangiectasia mutated) and LKB1 (liver kinase B1) and then adenosine monophosphate-activated kinase (AMPK), and thus prevents protein synthesis and cell growth. Metformin can activate p53 by activating AMPK and thereby ultimately stop the cell cycle. Given the potential of metformin in the treatment of cancer, it can be used in radiotherapy, chemotherapy and to improve the response to treatment in androgen derivatives (ADT), and also, according to available evidence, metformin can also be used to prevent various types of cancers. Generally, metformin can: 1) reduce the incidence of cancers, 2) reduce the mortality from cancers, 3) increase the response to treatment in cancer cells when using radiotherapy and chemotherapy, 4) optimize tumor movement and reduce the malignancy, 5) reduce the likelihood of relapse, and 6) reduce the damaging effects of ADT. Therefore, this drug can be used as a complementary therapeutic agent for cancer treatment and prevention. In this review, we have summarized the data from various experimental and clinical studies and highlight the possible potential effects of metformin on cancer therapeutic responses.
Automatic classification of emotions via global and local prosodic features on a multilingual emotional database

In this paper we introduce the €motion database, a multilingual emotional database consisting of emotional sentences elicited in four European languages: Italian, French, English and German. Along with this, a new set of features, containing both global and local prosodic features, for automatic classification of emotions is presented and their appropriateness for this task tested. The results obtained using these features on a monolingual emotional database are comparable with the state of the art results previously obtained.
Interactive Image Segmentation Using Semi-transparent Wearable Glasses

Since it is difficult to automatically and precisely extract an object of interest, interactive image segmentation techniques exploit user-provided segmentation seeds. In previous interactive segmentation applications, the segmentation seeds are typically provided by mouse clicks or finger touches. In this paper, the segmentation of an object is studied from the scene that the user sees through semi-transparent wearable glasses. In this application scenario, a front-view camera is used to obtain the segmentation seeds from the user's fingertip position. In particular, two segmentation methodologies called transparent segmentation and semi-transparent segmentation are considered to determine an effective segmentation scheme for the wearable glasses. Extensive user studies are performed to evaluate the user preferences and the segmentation accuracies of the two methodologies.