Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FDG PET imaging in patients with pathologically verified dementia.

UNLABELLED The purpose of this study was to confirm with pathologic verification 2 beliefs related to Alzheimer's disease (AD): (a) the long-standing impression that bilateral temporo-parietal hypometabolism, as noted on FDG PET imaging, is the metabolic abnormality associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and (b) that the sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of the metabolic pattern of bilateral temporo-parietal hypometabolism allows differentiation between other degenerative causes of dementia. METHODS Twenty two individuals (8 women, 14 men) with difficult-to-characterize memory loss or dementia (using standard clinical criteria), and who eventually received pathologic confirmation of diagnosis, were evaluated. FDG PET brain scans were obtained and visually graded by an experienced nuclear medicine physician as to the presence of classic bilateral temporo-parietal hypometabolism as seen in Alzheimer's type dementia. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and diagnostic accuracy of the metabolic pattern of bilateral temporo-parietal hypometabolism were determined using pathologic diagnosis as the gold standard. RESULTS The clinical diagnosis of possible or probable AD was determined as the primary cause of dementia in 12 patients. The sensitivity and specificity of the clinical diagnosis for probable AD were 63% and 100%, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of the clinical diagnosis for possible and probable AD were 75% and 100%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of bilateral temporo-parietal hypometabolism being associated with AD were 93%, 63%, and 82%, respectively. CONCLUSION This study confirms that bilateral temporo-parietal hypometabolism is indeed the classic metabolic abnormality associated with AD. Furthermore, in individuals with dementia whose FDG PET scans indicated a metabolic pattern other than bilateral temporo-parietal hypometabolism, a cause of dementia other than AD should be suspected. These observations may be of clinical importance in differentiating dementia syndromes. The sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of FDG PET are acceptable as tests to be used in the evaluation of dementia and particularly to confirm the clinical suspicion of AD.
Glial Activation in the Early Stages of Brain Metastasis: TSPO as a Diagnostic Biomarker

Metastatic spread of cancer cells to the brain is associated with high mortality, primarily because current diagnostic tools identify only well-advanced metastases. Brain metastases have been shown to induce a robust glial response, including both astrocyte and microglial activation. On the basis of these findings, we hypothesized that this stromal response may provide a sensitive biomarker of tumor burden, in particular through the use of SPECT/PET imaging agents targeting the translocator protein (TSPO) that is upregulated on activated glia. Our goals, therefore, were first to determine the spatial and temporal profile of glial activation during early metastasis growth in vivo and second to assess the potential of the radiolabeled TSPO ligand 123I-DPA-713 for early detection of brain metastases. Methods: Metastatic mouse mammary carcinoma 4T1-green fluorescent protein cells were injected either intracerebrally or intracardially into female BALB/c mice to induce brain metastases. Astrocyte and microglial activation was assessed immunohistochemically over a 28-d period, together with immunofluorescence detection of TSPO upregulation. Subsequently, SPECT imaging and autoradiography were used to determine in vivo binding of 123I-DPA-713 at metastatic sites. Results: Dynamic astrocyte and microglial activation was evident throughout the early stages of tumor growth, with the extent of astrocyte activation correlating significantly with tumor size (P < 0.0001). Microglial activation appeared to increase more rapidly than astrocyte activation at the earlier time points, but by later time points the extent of activation was comparable between the glial cell types. Upregulation of TSPO expression was found on both glial populations. Both autoradiographic and in vivo SPECT data showed strong positive binding of 123I-DPA-713 in the intracerebrally induced model of brain metastasis, which was significantly greater than that observed in controls (P < 0.05). 123I-DPA-713 binding was also evident autoradiographically in the intracardially induced model of brain metastasis but with lower sensitivity because of smaller tumor size (∼100-μm diameter vs. ∼600-μm diameter in the intracerebral model). Conclusion: These data suggest that the glial response to brain metastasis may provide a sensitive biomarker of tumor burden, with a tumor detection threshold lying between 100 and 600 μm in diameter. This approach could enable substantially earlier detection of brain metastases than the current clinical approach of gadolinium-enhanced MR imaging.
TAS: A NEW TEST OF ADULT SPEE DEAF PEOPLE REALLY CAN BE BETTER S

A new Test of Adult Speechreading (TAS) is described. The TAS was designed for use with the born-deaf speechreader. It uses picture choice responses, and vocabulary and syntax appropriate to such users. Over 100 deaf and hearing people have so far been tested using the TAS. The pattern of performance of subsets of users is described. The effects of factors including age (18-68), gender, non-verbal IQ, education, regional speech community, language preference, and the hearing status of participants and their parents is summarised. Among the notable findings to date: in deaf but not hearing people, visible regional accent and level of education (tertiary vs. non-tertiary) affected performance markedly. Participants with similar southern regional accents to the talkers achieved higher scores than those with northern accents, and those with a tertiary level education performed better than those without. In the hearing participants, parental hearing status predicted performance (people with deaf parents were better speechreaders). Most strikingly, after close matching of deaf and hearing individuals for all psychometric and background variables, deaf participants outperformed their hearing peers by a significant margin.
Customer Satisfaction and Stock Prices: High Returns, Low Risk:

Do investments in customer satisfaction lead to excess returns? If so, are these returns associated with higher stock market risk? The empirical evidence presented in this article suggests that the answer to the first question is yes, but equally remarkable, the answer to the second question is no, suggesting that satisfied customers are economic assets with high returns/low risk. Although these results demonstrate stock market imperfections with respect to the time it takes for share prices to adjust, they are consistent with previous studies in marketing in that a firm’s satisfied customers are likely to improve both the level and the stability of net cash flows. The implication, implausible as it may seem in other contexts, is high return/low risk. Specifically, the authors find that customer satisfaction, as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), is significantly related to market value of equity. Yet news about ACSI results does not move share prices. This apparent inconsistency is the catalyst for examining whether excess stock returns might be generated as a result. The authors present two stock portfolios: The first is a paper portfolio that is back tested, and the second is an actual case. At low systematic risk, both outperform the market by considerable margins. In other words, it is possible to beat the market consistently by investing in firms that do well on the ACSI.
SOIL MOISTURE ESTIMATION BY ANN USING BISTATIC SCATTEROMETER DATA

Abstract. The microwave response of bare soil surfaces is influenced by a variety of parameters such as surface roughness, vegetation density, soil texture and soil moisture. It makes the soil moisture estimation process more complex. In such condition, the estimation of the soil moisture using microwave data with fast and less complex computing technique is a significant area of research today. The artificial neural network (ANN) approach has been found more potential in retrieving soil moisture from microwave sensors as compared to traditional techniques. For this purpose, a back propagation artificial neural network (BPANN) based on Levenberg Marquardt (TRAINLM) algorithm was developed. The measurement of scattering coefficient was carried out over a range of incidence angle from 20° to 70° at 5° steps for both the HH- and VV- polarizations. The BPANN was trained and tested with the experimentally obtained data by using bistatic X-band scatterometer for different values of soil moistures (12%, 16%, 21% and 25%) at 30° incidence angle. The scattering coefficient and soil moisture data were interpolated into 20 data sets and these data sets were divided into training data sets (70%) and testing data sets (30%). The performance of the trained BPANN was evaluated by comparing the observed soil moisture and estimated soil moisture by developed BPANN using a linear regression analysis (least square fitting) and performance factor Adj_R2. The values of Adj_R2 were found 0.93 and 0.94 for HH- and VV- polarization at 30° incidence angle respectively. The estimation of soil moisture by BPANN with Levenberg Marquardt training algorithm was found better at both HH- and VV- polarizations.
Association of Serum MicroRNA Expression in Hepatocellular Carcinomas Treated with Transarterial Chemoembolization and Patient Survival

Background and Aim Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most deadly tumors. Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) is effective for unresectable HCC. In recent years, miRNAs have been proposed as novel diagnostic and prognostic tools for HCC. This study aimed to identify whether microRNAs (miRNAs) can serve as biomarkers to reliably predict outcome before HCC patients are treated with TACE. Methods Eleven miRNAs (miR-, miR-19a, miR-101-3p, miR-199a-5p, miR-200a, miR-21, miR-214, miR-221, miR-222, miR-223 and miR-, -5p) were quantified by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) in 136 HCC patients’ serum before they received TACE therapy. Univariate and multivariate analysis were used to identify the prognostic value of clinical parameters and miRNAs. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the prediction potency. Results The levels of some miRNAs were dramatically associated with clinicopathologic features regarding Child-Puge class, AFP, tumor size and satellite nodules. Univariate analysis revealed that miR-200a, miR-21, miR-122 and miR-224-5p were significantly associated with patients’ survival. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that AFP, satellite nodules and miR-200a were the independent prognostic factors associated with survival in this cohort (p = 0.000, 0.001, 0.000, respectively). The probability of the prognostic accuracy of miR-200a was 81.64% (74.47% specificity and 88.76% sensitivity), which was higher than the classifier established by combination of AFP and satellite nodules (76.87% probability, 70.21% specificity and 69.66% sensitivity). Furthermore, the combination of AFP, satellite nodules and miR-200a demonstrated as a classifier for HCC prognosis, yielding a ROC curve area of 88.19% (93.62% specificity and 68.54% sensitivity). Conclusions Our study indicated that serum miR-200a may prognosticate disease outcome in HCC patients with TACE therapy. Therefore, miR-200a can potentially guide individualized treatment for HCC patients with a high risk of TACE treatment failures.
Accessing multiple mirror sites in parallel: using Tornado codes to speed up downloads

Mirror sites enable client requests to be serviced by any of a number of servers, reducing load at individual servers and dispersing network load. Typically, a client requests service from a single mirror site. We consider enabling a client to access a file from multiple mirror sites in parallel to speed up the download. To eliminate complex client-server negotiations that a straightforward implementation of this approach would require, we develop a feedback-free protocol based on erasure codes. We demonstrate that a protocol using fast Tornado codes can deliver dramatic speedups at the expense of transmitting a moderate number of additional packets into the network. This scalable solution extends naturally to allow multiple clients to access data from multiple mirror sites simultaneously. The approach applies naturally to wireless networks and satellite networks as well.
Constitution and Insulin Sensitivity in Diabetes Mellitus

It has long been recognized that there are several clinical types of diabetes me'litus. In particular, Falta and Boller (1931), Falta (1936), Himsworth and Kerr (1939), and Himsworth (1949), and others have described two broad groups of diabetics-the young, thin, nonarteriosclerotic group with normal blood pressure and usually an acute onset to the disease, and the older, obese, arteriosclerotic group with hypertension and usually a gradual onset. Clinically, the patients in the first group are rapidly responsive to insulin and are subject to both hypoglycaemia and ketosis, whereas the patients of the second group are clinically less responsive to insulin and are much less liable to either of these complications. This difference was more clearly defined when Himsworth (1936) devised his insulin sensitivity test and found that in general the first group of patients showed a sensitive response to that test, whereas those in the second grotup tended to be insensitive, although exceptions were encountered in both groups. Furthermore, he found that the patients tended to be either clearly sensitive or clearly -insensitive in their response.
Computer tomography and magnetic resonance image manifestations of primary hepatic neuroendocrine cell carcinomas.

AIM This study aims to investigate the manifestation of CT, MRI and dynamic enhanced scans for primary hepatic neuroendocrine cell carcinoma. METHODS CT or MRI arterial and venous phase scan images of 19 cases of pathologically confirmed PHNEC were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS 14 cases (73.68%) with single lesion, 5 cases (26.3%) with multiple lesions, with an average diameter of 13.2 cm. Some 12 cases (63.16%) showed inhomogeneous enhancement, seven cases (36.8%) showed homogeneous enhancement, 13 cases (68.4%) demonstrated significant enhancement in the arterial phase, 13 cases (68.4%) had significantly enhanced portal venous phase including 7 cases (36.8 %) with portal venous phase density or signal above the arterial phase and 5 cases (26.3%) with the portal vein density or signal below the arterial phase. Seven cases (36.8%) had continued strengthened separate shadows in the center of the lesion. Thrombosis were not seen in portal veins. CONCLUSION CT and MRI images of liver cell neuroendocrine carcinoma have certain characteristics that can provide valuable information for diagnosis and differential diagnosis.
ACUTE TOXICITY, PHYTOCHEMISTRY AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF AQUEOUS AND ETHANOLIC LEAF EXTRACTS OF CASSIA ALATA LINN

Cassia alata Linn is an important medicinal plant as well as an ornamental flowering plant that has diverse reported medicinal values. This study focused on the evaluation of the phytochemical components, antibacterial as well as acute toxicity studies. The leaves of the plant were collected, dried, ground and extra cted using 95% ethanol and water. The extracts were used for acute toxicity study, phytochemical screening and antibacterial assay using cup - plate method. The result from this study revealed the presence of saponins, anthraquinones, cardiac glycosides, fla vonoids, reducing sugars and terpenes. The concentrations of these bioactive compon ents were slightly higher in ethanol than in aqueous leaf extract. The antibacterial effect s produced by the extract s was dose dependent at the teste d doses (20 mg to 160 mg ) on S taphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhi . The aqueous leaf extract showed higher activity on Esche richia coli than ethanol extract at 16 0 mg (p<0.05), whereas ethanol leaf extract had higher activity than aqueous leaf extract on Sa lmonella typhi at the same dose (p<0.05). The MIC for aqueous leaf extract ranged between 3.50 mg and 25.15 mg, while that of ethanol leaf e xtract was from 1.41 mg to 3.55 mg on the organisms tested. This study showed that ethanol and aqueous leaf extracts contain some secondary bioactive metabolites that may be responsible for the observed antibacterial activity and thus supports the traditional use of the plant in the management of typhoid fever and other infections caused by susceptible organisms. Ke ywords: Phytochemical , antibacterial , Aqueous, Ethanol, Cassia alata
The centrality of user modeling to high recall with high precision search

The objective of Search is to find documents relevant to a particular user's notion of relevance. However, relevance is often a moving target: imperfectly defined and subject to change as more documents are seen. In this paper, we report on systematic User Modeling (UM) and the use of a system-internal agent (proxy) to produce a hybrid human-computer system that achieves extraordinarily high performance on mediated Search tasks. We present details of our UM-approach and its four main components: (i) use case (ii) scope (iii) nuance and (iv) linguistic variability. We illustrate how these components provide a framework with which a user and a proxy co-construct a shared representation of information needs and mutual knowledge. This representation serves as the common ground through which external knowledge is shared, mediated, negotiated, synthesized and made accessible to the system. We evaluated the performance of our system on the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, a corpus of advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales and scientific research activities of major US tobacco companies. Independently adjudicated results from NIST's 2008 TREC legal track demonstrate that our approach to UM yields high performance on Search tasks.
Slow biasing of processing resources in early visual cortex is preceded by emotional cue extraction in emotion–attention competition

In our previous studies on competition for attentional processing resources in early visual cortex between a foreground task and distracting emotional background images we found that emotional background images withdraw attentional resources from the foreground task after about 400 ms. Costs in behavioral data and a significant reduction of the steady state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) amplitude that was elicited by the foreground task lasted for several hundred milliseconds. We speculated that the differential effect in SSVEP amplitudes is preceded by the extraction of the emotional cue. Event related potential (ERP) studies to emotional and neutral complex images identified an early posterior negativity (EPN) as a robust neural signature of emotional cue extraction. The late positive potential (LPP) was related to in‐depth processing of the emotional image. We extracted ERPs that were evoked by the onset of background images concurrently with the SSVEP that was elicited by the foreground task. Emotional compared to neutral background pictures evoked a more negative EPN at about 190 ms and a more positive LPP at about 700 ms after image onset. SSVEP amplitudes became significantly smaller with emotional background images after about 400 ms lasting for several hundred ms. Interestingly, we found no significant correlations between the three components, indicating that they act independently. Source localizations resulted in nonoverlapping cortical generators. Results suggest a cascade of perceptual processes: Extraction of the emotional cue preceded biasing of attentional resources away from the foreground task towards the emotional image for an evaluation of the picture content. Hum Brain Mapp 35:1477–1490, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Predictors of HIV-test utilization in PMTCT among antenatal care attendees in government health centers: institution-based cross-sectional study using health belief model in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2013

Background Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is the most dramatic epidemic of the century that has claimed over two decades more than 3 million deaths. Sub-Saharan Africa is heavily affected and accounts for nearly 70% of all cases. Mother-to-child transmission of HIV is responsible for 20% of all HIV transmissions. With no preventive interventions, 50% of HIV infections are transmitted from HIV-positive mothers to newborns. HIV-testing is central to prevent vertical transmission. Despite, awareness campaigns, prevention measures, and more recently, promotion of antiviral regimens, the prevalence of cases and deaths is still rising and the prevalence of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) voluntary counseling test (VCT) use remains low. This study identifies predictors and possible barriers of HIV-testing among antenatal care attendees based on the health belief model (HBM) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methods The study was an institution-based cross-sectional survey conducted from September 1 to September 30, 2013. A total of 308 individuals were interviewed using structured questionnaires adopted and modified from similar studies. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews. A logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with HIV-test use. Results In spite of satisfactory knowledge on HIV/AIDS transmission, participants are still at high risk of contracting the infection, wherein only 51.8% tested for HIV; among the married, only 84.1% and among the gestational age of third trimester, 34.1% mothers tested for HIV. Based on the HBM, failure to use PMTCT-HIV-test was related to its perceived lack of net benefit (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] =0.34, confidence interval [CI] [0.19–0.58], P<0.001), but interviewees with high perceived self-efficacy were 1.9 times more likely to use HIV-test (AOR =1.90, CI [1.09–3.33], P<0.05). Conclusion and recommendation This study identifies perceived self-efficacy and perceived lack of net benefit as the main predictors of PMTCT-HIV-test use. Hence, prevention strategies based on increasing perceived risk, perceived severity, or adequate knowledge about HIV/AIDS may not be sufficient to induce PMTCT-HIV-test. These data will be useful in designing and improving HIV/AIDS prevention programs and focused health communication and counseling strategies in relation to PMTCT in Ethiopia.