Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-Term Visual Outcome in Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration Patients Depending on the Number of Ranibizumab Injections

Purpose. To analyse the visual outcome in wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) patients depending on the number of ranibizumab injections. Methods. 51 naïve wet AMD patients were retrospectively recorded. Visual acuity (VA), central retinal thickness (CRT) measured with spectral domain (SD) optical coherence tomography (OCT), and number of intravitreal injections were compared at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months of follow-up. Kaplan-Meier survival rates (SRs) based on VA outcomes were calculated depending on the number of ranibizumab injections performed. Results. VA improved compared with baseline at 6 and 12 months (P < 0.005). No differences were found at 18, 24, 30, and 36 months (P > 0.05). CRT measured with Cirrus OCT decreased (P < 0.001) at all time points analysed. The mean number of injections received was 6.98 ± 3.69. At 36 months, Kaplan-Meier SR was 76.5% (the proportion of patients without a decrease in vision of more than 0.3 logMAR units). VA remained stable (≤0.01 logMAR units) or improved in 62.7%. Within this group, SR was 92.9% in those who received 7 or more injections versus 51.4% receiving <7 treatments (P = 0.008; log-rank test). Conclusion. Better VA outcomes were found in stable wet AMD patients after 3 years of follow-up if they received ≥7 ranibizumab injections.
Application of search algorithms to natural language processing

Currently, the most common technique for Natural Language parsing is done by using pattern matching through references to a database with the aid of grammatical structures models. But the huge variety of linguistical syntax and semantics means that accurate real time analysis is very difficult. We investigate several optimisation approaches to reduce the search space for finding an accurate parse of a sentence where individual words can have multiple possible syntactic categories, and categories and phrases can combine together in different ways. The algorithms we consider include mechanisms for ordering that reduce the search cost without loss of completeness or accuracy as well as mechanisms that prune the space and may result in eliminating valid parses or returning a suboptimal as the best parse. We discuss the development and benchmarking of the existing and proposed algorithms in terms of accuracy, search space and parse time. Speed up of an order of magnitude was achieved without loss of completeness, whilst decrease of over two orders of magnitude was achieved in the search space. A further order of magnitude reduction of both time and search space was achieved at the expense of some loss of accuracy in finding the most probable parse.
Comparison of different control strategies for classical swine fever using emergency vaccination and rapid PCR testing by using a Monte-Carlo simulation model

Abstract. Whenever an outbreak of classical swine fever has occurred in the European Union (EU), the basic control measures have usually been supplemented by preventive culling. This strategy has led to a great number of culled pigs and is discussed by general public and politics from both ethical and economic points of view. Emergency vaccination has been deemed to be an alternative control measure for some time now. PCR testing also provides a possible future strategy, since this method would allow a rapid and reliable testing of pigs in the vicinity of an outbreak farm. In this study, a spatial and temporal Monte-Carlo simulation model was used to compare alternative control strategies based upon these two measures (»Emergency Vaccination«, »Test To Slaughter«, »Test To Control« and »Vaccination in conjunction with Rapid Testing«) with the current control strategy. Two regions for investigation with different farm densities were used in the model. In a region with a low farm density, the basic EU control measures seemed to be sufficient to control an epidemic. In a region with a high farm density, additional measures would be necessary. »Emergency Vaccination« in a 3 km application zone and »Traditional Control« reached the same level of infected farms. Both »Test To Slaughter« and »Test To Control« combined with preventive culling led to a lower number of infected farms compared to the sole preventive culling strategy. The alternative control measures can reduce the number of culled farms significantly compared to »Traditional Control«.
The Agree Predictor: A Mechanism For Reducing Negative Branch History Interference

Deeply pipelined, superscalar processors require accurate branch prediction to achieve high performance. Two-level branch predictors have been shown to achieve high prediction accuracy. It has also been shown that branch interference is a major contributor to the number of branches mispredicted by two-level predictors.This paper presents a new method to reduce the interference problem called agree prediction, which reduces the chance that two branches aliasing the same PHT entry will interfere negatively. We evaluate the performance of this scheme using full traces (both user and supervisor) of the SPECint95 benchmarks. The result is a reduction in the misprediction rate of gcc ranging from 8.62% with a 64K-entry PHT up to 33.3% with a 1K-entry PHT.
Clinical Characteristics and Prognostic Factors in Dogs with Histiocytic Sarcomas in Japan

ABSTRACT Canine histiocytic sarcoma (HS) is a rare neoplasm that originates from dendritic cells or macrophages, and there have been a number of cases experienced in Japan. To identify the characteristics and prognostic variables that determine outcome in dogs with HS in Japan, medical records of 73 dogs with HS were retrospectively analyzed. Signalment, clinical signs, complete blood count (CBC), blood chemistry profiles, treatment, response to treatment and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. Diagnosis of HS was determined histologically in 44 cases and cytologically in 29 cases. The most frequently diagnosed breeds were Flat-Coated Retrievers (n=16, odds ratio [OR] 62.0), Pembroke Welsh corgis (n=15, OR 9.7) and Bernese Mountain dogs (n=14, OR 45.0). Median survival time for all dogs in this study was 43 days. In the dogs that received no treatment or only symptomatic treatment, the median OS was 12 days (range 2–254 days) compared with that of dogs that received surgical treatment and/or chemotherapy (85 days, range 4–360 days). Univariate analysis identified anemia, thrombocytopenia, hypoalbuminemia, hypoproteinemia and not receiving antitumor treatment (chemotherapy and/or surgery) as factors significantly associated with shorter OS. Multivariate analysis confirmed that platelet counts, localized/disseminated lesional pattern and whether the dog received antitumor treatment were significantly predictive of survival.
Linear Consensus Algorithms Based on Balanced Asymmetric Chains

Multi-agent consensus algorithms, with update steps based on so-called balanced asymmetric chains, are analyzed. For such algorithms, it is shown that: (i) the empirical distribution of state values converges asymptotically and (ii) the occurrence of consensus or multiple consensus is directly related to the property of absolute infinite flow of the underlying update chain. An example is provided to illustrate the novelty of the results.
123I-Iodobenzovesamicol SPECT Imaging of Cholinergic Systems in Dementia with Lewy Bodies

Cholinergic alterations in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) have been widely documented in postmortem studies, whereas in vivo studies are sparse, particularly at the subcortical level. We used 123I-iodobenzovesamicol, a SPECT radiotracer of the vesicular acetylcholine transporter, to evaluate in vivo in DLB the integrity of the 3 main cholinergic pathways—the Ch1 (septohippocampal), the Ch4 (innominatocortical), and the Ch5 (pontothalamic) cholinergic pathways—as well as the striatal cholinergic interneurons. In addition, we assessed the involvement of the cholinergic system in cognitive and neuropsychiatric disorders in DLB patients. Methods: Twelve healthy volunteers (median age, 72 y; interquartile range, 6.25 y) and 11 DLB patients (median age, 76 y; interquartile range, 10.50 y) underwent a dynamic 123I-iodobenzovesamicol SPECT scan and an MRI scan. MR images were automatically segmented, providing the volumes of several regions of interest, including the striatum and cholinergic terminals in Ch1 (hippocampus), Ch4 (cortical lobes), and Ch5 (thalamus). For each region of interest and each subject, pharmacokinetic modeling allowed calculation of the nondisplaceable binding potential (BPND) values for the binding of 123I-iodobenzovesamicol to the vesicular acetylcholine transporter. A neuropsychological evaluation of participants was performed with the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Grober–Buschke, Set, visual discrimination, Benton, and Wechsler tests, and cognitive fluctuations and apathy were also assessed. Results: Compared with BPND values for healthy subjects, BPND values for DLB patients were significantly lower in the Ch4 terminal regions of the anterior cingulate cortex and the superior and inferior parietal cortices (P = 0.0006, 0.0015, and 0.0023, respectively), in the Ch5 terminal region of the thalamus (P = 0.0003), and in the striatum (P = 0.0042). All of the neuropsychological test scores were significantly lower in DLB patients than in healthy subjects. Four DLB patients with apathy and 4 DLB patients without apathy were identified. For the anterior cingulate cortex, compared with BPND values in healthy subjects, BPND values were significantly lower in patients with apathy (P = 0.004) and were unchanged in patients without apathy. Conclusion: Our results confirm the existence in DLB of cholinergic alterations, reaching both cortical and subcortical levels, including the Ch5 pathway and the striatum. Alterations in cholinergic transmission in the anterior cingulate cortex could be closely associated with the development of apathy.
Distributed containment control of multi‐agent systems with general linear dynamics in the presence of multiple leaders

This paper considers the containment control problems for both continuous‐time and discrete‐time multi‐agent systems with general linear dynamics under directed communication topologies. Distributed dynamic containment controllers based on the relative outputs of neighboring agents are constructed for both continuous‐time and discrete‐time cases, under which the states of the followers will asymptotically converge to the convex hull formed by those of the leaders if, for each follower, there exists at least one leader that has a directed path to that follower. Sufficient conditions on the existence of these dynamic controllers are given. Static containment controllers relying on the relative states of neighboring agents are also discussed as special cases. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Single Dose of Oral BCG Moreau Fails to Boost Systemic IFN-γ Responses to Tuberculin in Children in the Rural Tropics: Evidence for a Barrier to Mucosal Immunization

Immune responses to oral vaccines are impaired in populations living in conditions of poverty in developing countries, and there is evidence that concurrent geohelminth infections may contribute to this effect. We vaccinated 48 children living in rural communities in Ecuador with a single oral dose of 100 mg of BCG Moreau RDJ and measured the frequencies of tuberculin-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells expressing IFN-γ before and after vaccination. Vaccinated children had active ascariasis (n = 20) or had been infected but received short- (n = 13) or long-term (n = 15) repeated treatments with albendazole prior to vaccination to treat ascariasis. All children had a BCG scar from neonatal vaccination. There was no evidence of a boosting of postvaccination IFN-γ responses in any of the 3 study groups. Our data provide support for the presence of a barrier to oral vaccination among children from the rural tropics that appeared to be independent of concurrent ascariasis.
Duplication of Hemolysin Genes in a Virulent Isolate of Vibrio harveyi

ABSTRACT Vibrio harveyi VIB 645, which is very pathogenic towards salmonids and produces extracellular product with a high titer of hemolytic activity towards fish erythrocytes, was found to contain two closely related hemolysin genes (designated vhhA andvhhB), whereas the majority of strains examined (11 of 13) carried only a single hemolysin gene. Both genes from VIB 645 were cloned and sequenced. The open reading frames (ORFs) ofvhhA and vhhB shared a high level of identity (98.8%) and were predicted to encode identical polypeptides comprising 418 amino acid residues. The VHH protein shows homology to the lecithinase of V. mimicus and V. cholerae. Transformants of Escherichia coli containing the ORF of either vhhA or vhhB displayed weak hemolytic activity in rainbow trout blood agar. The hemolytic activity was very high when the ORF of vhhB was cloned in E. colitogether with the native promoter. Surprisingly, the level ofvhh-specific RNA transcript produced by VIB 645 was found to be very low. We conclude that the hemolytic phenotype of VIB 645 is not due to increased expression of one or both copies of thevhh gene.
A Methodology for Stochastic Fault Simulation in VLSI Processor Architectures

We present a simulation methodology for fault analysis within VLSI designs. Our approach uses stochastic fault injection to decrease the required simulation time when performing fault analysis. By using a fraction of the total number of available injection points, we obtain a statistical characterization of the design under test without rigorously testing every gate within the circuit at every point in time. Our approach targets the characterization of fault behavior in large-scale circuits including full CPU architecture designs that would normally be too complex for traditional fault-analysis techniques. We present two methods for performing stochastic fault injection. One requires component library modification and is implemented entirely in VLSI source code. The second does not modify component libraries but rather interacts directly with the simulation environment and is implemented using programming language interface (PLI). We compare the simulation cost of each as well as the trade offs in design analysis. Furthermore, we introduce an optimization strategy when performing fault analysis that utilizes the checkpointing feature typically found in VLSI simulation environments. This optimization eliminates the need for multiple simulations of a single benchmark program with different random seeds. Our techniques can be implemented in any VLSI simulation environment supporting PLI and is compatible with both VHDL and Verilog designs. We present our algorithms and demonstrate their usage on the fully implemented OpenRISC processor [2]. Finally, we validate our method by demonstrating an increase in accuracy when increasing the number of injected faults. We show that even with as few as 250 faults, we see at most an 8 percent difference in the standard deviation and as the number of faults increase, the accuracy quickly approaches 100 percent.
D‐Charts: Quasi‐Developable Mesh Segmentation

Quasi-developable mesh segmentation is required for many applications in graphics and CAD, including texture atlas generation and the design of patterns for model fabrication from sheets of material. In this work we introduce D-Charts , a simple and robust algorithm for mesh segmentation into (nearly) developable charts. As part of our method we introduce a new metric of developability for mesh surfaces. Thanks to this metric, using our segmentation for texture atlas generation, we can bound the distortion of the atlas directly during the segmentation stage. We demonstrate that by using this bound, we generate more isometric atlases for the same number of charts compared to existing state-of-the-art techniques. Using our segmentation algorithm we also develop a technique for automatic pattern design. To demonstrate the practicality of this technique, we use the patterns produced by our algorithm to make fabric and paper copies of popular computer graphics models.
Reactive Syringofibroadenomatous Hyperplasia in Peristomal Skin with Formation of Hybrid Epidermal-Colonic Mucosa Glandular Structures, Intraepidermal Areas of Sebaceous Differentiation, Induction of Hair Follicles, and Features of Human Papillomavirus Infection: A Diagnostic Pitfall

We report a case of reactive syringofibroadenomatous hyperplasia in peristomal skin. The patient was a 62-year-old woman who had undergone abdominoperineal resection of the rectum for rectal adenocarcinoma with subsequent colostomy 2 years earlier. Clinically, a nodule and small, whitish, warty lesions developed at the outer margin of the stoma extending onto the adjacent skin. Following a clinical suspicion of adenocarcinoma, recurrent at the colostomy site, a 5 × 4 × 3-cm excision of the peristomal skin and the affected portion of the stoma was performed and submitted for histologic examination. The biopsy revealed a peculiar composite lesion of reactive syringofibroadenomatous hyperplasia and the excised part of the stoma. Several unusual histopathological features were detected in the syringofibroadenomatous part of the lesion such as the formation of plentiful hybrid epidermal-colonic mucosa glandular structures, intraepidermal areas of sebaceous differentiation, koilocytic changes, induction of rudimentary hair follicles, and intradermal mucinous lakes. The cellular composition of the glandular structures was mainly similar to that seen in a normal colonic mucosa epithelium. They also contained occasional Paneth cells. Being located at a distance from the stoma, these accentuated colonic mucosa epithelial glands reaching the epidermis may be a diagnostic pitfall prompting the consideration of adenocarcinoma involving the stoma. The rudimentary follicles and sebaceous differentiation were probably induced by an altered stroma and/or human papillomavirus (HPV): HPV, type 36 was identified by PCR using consensus primers followed by sequencing of the PCR products.
Trends in Medication Treatment for ADHD

Objective: This study examines demographic trends in the use of medications to treat ADHD in adult and pediatric populations. Method: Using pharmacy claims data for a large population of commercially insured Americans, the study measures ADHD treatment prevalence and drug use from 2000 to 2005. Results: In 2005, 4.4% of children (ages 0 to 19) and 0.8% of adults (ages 20 and older) used ADHD medications. Treatment rates were higher in boys (6.1%) than in girls (2.6%), but the rates for men and women were approximately equal (0.8%). During the period of the study, treatment prevalence increased rapidly (11.8% per year) for the population as a whole. Treatment rates grew more rapidly for adults than for children, more rapidly for women than for men, and more rapidly for girls than for boys. Conclusion: Improved identification of ADHD in adult and female patients has contributed to rapid growth in ADHD medication use. (J. of Att. Dis. 2007; 10(4) 335-342)
Contrasting Behavior of Higher Plant Photosystem I and II Antenna Systems during Acclimation*

In this work we analyzed the photosynthetic apparatus in Arabidopsis thaliana plants acclimated to different light intensity and temperature conditions. Plants showed the ability to acclimate into different environments and avoid photoinhibition. When grown in high light, plants had a faster activation rate for energy dissipation (qE). This ability was correlated to higher accumulation levels of a specific photosystem II subunit, PsbS. The photosystem II antenna size was also regulated according to light exposure; smaller antenna size was observed in high light-acclimated plants with respect to low light plants. Different antenna polypeptides did not behave similarly, and Lhcb1, Lchb2, and Lhcb6 (CP24) are shown to undergo major levels of regulation, whereas Lhcb4 and Lhcb5 (CP29 and CP26) maintained their stoichiometry with respect to the reaction center in all growth conditions. The effect of acclimation on photosystem I antenna was different; in fact, the stoichiometry of any Lhca antenna proteins with respect to photosystem I core complex was not affected by growth conditions. Despite this stability in antenna stoichiometry, photosystem I light harvesting function was shown to be regulated through different mechanisms like the control of photosystem I to photosystem II ratio and the association or dissociation of Lhcb polypeptides to photosystem I.
Production of Acetone Butanol Ethanol (ABE) by a Hyper‐Producing Mutant Strain of Clostridium beijerinckii BA101 and Recovery by Pervaporation

A silicone membrane was used to study butanol separation from model butanol solutions and fermentation broth. Depending upon the butanol feed concentration in the model solution and pervaporation conditions, butanol selectivities of 20.88–68.32 and flux values of 158.7–215.4 g m−2 h−1 were achieved. Higher flux values (400 g m−2 h−1) were obtained at higher butanol concentrations using air as sweep gas. In an integrated process of butanol fermentation−recovery, solvent productivities were improved to 200% of the control batch fermentation productivities. In a batch reactor the hyper‐butanol‐producing mutant strain C. beijerinckii BA101 utilized 57.3 g/L glucose and produced 24.2 g/L total solvents, while in the integrated process it produced 51.5 g/L (culture volume) total solvents. Concentrated glucose medium was also fermented. The C. beijerinckii BA101 mutant strain was not negatively affected by the pervaporative conditions. In the integrated experiment, acids were not produced. With the active fermentation broth, butanol selectivity was reduced by a factor of 2–3. However, the membrane flux was not affected by the active fermentation broth. The butanol permeate concentration ranged from 26.4 to 95.4 g/L, depending upon butanol concentration in the fermentation broth. Since the permeate of most membranes contains acetone, butanol, and ethanol (and small concentrations of acids), it is suggested that distillation be used for further purification.
Proposal of INRIA team MODEMIC Modelling and Optimisation of the Dynamics of Ecosystems with MICro-organisms

MODEMIC is a joint INRA-INRIA team, which research activities focus on model-ling and simulating of natural or reconstituted microbial ecosystems, over several time and space scales, as well as various diversity levels. The main object ives of the project are : - a better understanding of microbial ecology, especially its functions (degradation, fermenta- tion, sequestration.), its biodiversity and its role in preserving the environment (quality of water resources, soil fertility.) - new decision-making tools for managing and improving bioprocesses (decontamination, green chemistry.)