Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prognostic Influence of Pre-Operative C-Reactive Protein in Node-Negative Breast Cancer Patients

The importance of inflammation is increasingly noticed in cancer. The aim of this study was to analyze the prognostic influence of pre-operative serum C-reactive protein (CRP) in a cohort of 148 lymph node-negative breast cancer patients. The prognostic significance of CRP level for disease-free survival (DFS), metastasis-free survival (MFS) and overall survival (OS) was evaluated using univariate and multivariate Cox regression, also including information on age at diagnosis, tumor size, tumor grade, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status, proliferation index (Ki67) and molecular subtype, as well as an assessment of the presence of necrosis and inflammation in the tumor tissue. Univariate analysis showed that CRP, as a continuous variable, was significantly associated with DFS (P = 0.002, hazard ratio [HR] = 1.04, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.02–1.07) and OS (P = 0.036, HR = 1.03, 95% CI = 1.00–1.06), whereas a trend was observed for MFS (P = 0.111). In the multivariate analysis, CRP retained its significance for DFS (P = 0.033, HR = 1.01, 95% CI = 1.00–1.07) as well as OS (P = 0.023, HR = 1.03, 95% CI = 1.00–1.06), independent of established prognostic factors. Furthermore, large-scale gene expression analysis by Affymetrix HG-U133A arrays was performed for 72 (48.6%) patients. The correlations between serum CRP and gene expression levels in the corresponding carcinoma of the breast were assessed using Spearman's rank correlation, controlled for false-discovery rate. No significant correlation was observed between CRP level and gene expression indicative of an ongoing local inflammatory process. In summary, pre-operatively elevated CRP levels at the time of diagnosis were associated with shorter DFS and OS independent of established prognostic factors in node-negative breast cancer, supporting a possible link between inflammation and prognosis in breast cancer.
Image-Guided Fine Needle Cytology with Aspiration Versus Non-Aspiration in Retroperitoneal Masses: Is Aspiration Necessary?

Background: Although using fine needle cytology with aspiration (FNC-A) for establishing diagnoses in the retroperitoneal region has shown promise, there is scant literature supporting a role of non-aspiration cytology (FNC-NA) for this region. We assessed the accuracy and reliability of FNC-A and FNC-NA as tools for preoperative diagnosis of retroperitoneal masses and compared the results of both techniques with each other and with histopathology. Methods: Fifty-seven patients with retroperitoneal masses were subjected to FNC-A and FNC-NA. Smears were stained with May-Grunwald Giemsa and hematoxylin and eosin stain. An individual slide was objectively analysed using a point scoring system to enable comparison between FNC-A and FNC-NA. Results: By FNC-A, 91.7% accuracy was obtained in cases of retroperitoneal lymph node lesions followed by renal masses (83.3%). The diagnostic accuracy of other sites by FNC-A varied from 75.0%–81.9%. By FNC-NA, 93.4% diagnostically accurate results were obtained in the kidney, followed by 75.0% in adrenal masses. The diagnostic accuracy of other sites by FNC-NA varied from 66.7%–72.8%. Conclusions: Although both techniques have their own advantages and disadvantages, FNC-NA may be a more efficient adjuvant method of sampling in retroperitoneal lesions.
High-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations from GRS 1915+105

We report the results of a systematic timing analysis of all archival Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) observations of the bright black hole binary GRS 1915+105 in order to detect high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (HFQPOs). We produced power-density spectra in two energy bands and limited the analysis to the frequency range 30-1000 Hz. We found 51 peaks with a single-trial significance larger than 3σ. As all but three have centroid frequencies that are distributed between 63 and 71 Hz, we consider most of them significant regardless of the number of trials involved. The average centroid frequency and full width at half-maximum are 67.3 ± 2.0 Hz and 4.4 ± 2.4 Hz, respectively. Their fractional rms varies between 0.4 and 2 per cent (total band detections) and between 0.5 and 3 per cent (hard band detections). As GRS 1915+105 shows large variability on time-scales longer than 1 s, we analysed the data in 16 s intervals and found that the detections are limited to a specific region in the colour-colour diagram, corresponding to state B of the source, when the energy spectrum is dominated by a bright accretion disc component. However, the rms spectrum of the HFQPO is very hard and does not show a flattening up to 40 keV, where the fractional rms reaches 11 per cent. We discuss our findings in terms of current proposed models and compare them with the results on other black hole binaries and neutron-star binaries.
Do Wolbachia influence fecundity in Nasonia vitripennis?

This paper reports the influence of a vertically transmitted symbiont, Wolbachia, on host fitness in the parasitic wasp, Nasonia vitripennis. We measured fecundities of uninfected strains and strains infected with either two Wolbachia variants (wAv,wBv) or one (wAv or wBv). Preliminary tests suggested that double-infected females produce more offspring on average than uninfected females. However, further studies failed to yield consistent fitness effects. To control for host genetic effects, the genotype of the double-infected and uninfected strain was ‘replaced’ with three different host genetic backgrounds by introgression. Contrary to previous results, we found no convincing evidence for positive fitness effects of Wolbachia in Nasonia vitripennis, once host genetic background was controlled for. It can be concluded that under the experimental design used here, the fecundity effects associated with Wolbachia in N. vitripennis are small or absent.
3DUNDERWORLD-SLS: An Open-Source Structured-Light Scanning System for Rapid Geometry Acquisition

Recently, there has been an increase in the demand of virtual 3D objects representing real-life objects. A plethora of methods and systems have already been proposed for the acquisition of the geometry of real-life objects ranging from those which employ active sensor technology, passive sensor technology or a combination of various techniques. In this paper we present the development of a 3D scanning system which is based on the principle of structured-light, without having particular requirements for specialized equipment. We discuss the intrinsic details and inherent difficulties of structured-light scanning techniques and present our solutions. Finally, we introduce our open-source scanning software system "3DUNDERWORLD-SLS" which implements the proposed techniques both in CPU and GPU. We have performed extensive testing with a wide range of models and report the results. Furthermore, we present a comprehensive evaluation of the system and a comparison with a high-end commercial 3D scanner.
Ultrasequencing of the meiofaunal biosphere: practice, pitfalls and promises

Biodiversity assessment is the key to understanding the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but there is a well‐acknowledged biodiversity identification gap related to eukaryotic meiofaunal organisms. Meiofaunal identification is confounded by the small size of taxa, morphological convergence and intraspecific variation. However, the most important restricting factor in meiofaunal ecological research is the mismatch between diversity and the number of taxonomists that are able to simultaneously identify and catalogue meiofaunal diversity. Accordingly, a molecular operational taxonomic unit (MOTU)‐based approach has been advocated for en mass meiofaunal biodiversity assessment, but it has been restricted by the lack of throughput afforded by chain termination sequencing. Contemporary pyrosequencing offers a solution to this problem in the form of environmental metagenetic analyses, but this represents a novel field of biodiversity assessment. Here, we provide an overview of meiofaunal metagenetic analyses, ranging from sample preservation and DNA extraction to PCR, sequencing and the bioinformatic interrogation of multiple, independent samples using 454 Roche sequencing platforms. We report two examples of environmental metagenetic nuclear small subunit 18S (nSSU) analyses of marine and tropical rainforest habitats and provide critical appraisals of the level of putative recombinant DNA molecules (chimeras) in metagenetic data sets. Following stringent quality control measures, environmental metagenetic analyses achieve MOTU formation across the eukaryote domain of life at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional approaches. The effectiveness of Roche 454 sequencing brings substantial advantages to studies aiming to elucidate the molecular genetic richness of not only meiofaunal, but also all complex eukaryotic communities.
Children With Disability Are More at Risk of Violence Victimization

Although research tends to focus on whether children with disability are more at risk of violence victimization, conclusive evidence on the association, especially in non-Western settings, is lacking. Using a large and representative sample of school-aged children in Hong Kong (N = 5,841, aged 9-18 years), this study aims to fill the research gap by providing reliable estimates of the prevalence of disability and the direct and indirect experiences of violence among children with disability. The study also compares the prevalence of child maltreatment, parental intimate partner violence (IPV), and in-law conflict to explore the factors related to the association between disability and violence victimization. The prevalence of disability among children was about 6%. Children with disability were more likely to report victimization than those without disability: 32% to 60% of the former had experienced child maltreatment, and 12% to 46% of them had witnessed IPV between parents or in-law conflict. The results of a logistic regression showed that disability increased the risk of lifetime physical maltreatment by 1.6 times. Furthermore, low levels of parental education and paternal unemployment were risk factors for lifetime child maltreatment. The risk of child maltreatment could have an almost sixfold increase when the child had also witnessed other types of family violence. Possible explanations and implications of the findings are discussed.
Performance of Shallow Reinforced Concrete Beams with Externally Bonded Steel-Reinforced Polymer

The application of steel-reinforced polymer (SRP) composites in structural strengthening is a new concept based on the use of high-strength steel cord. This paper presents the results of an experimental program on the flexural behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened with SRP, including the performance of epoxy resin versus cementitious grout to impregnate and bond SRP to concrete, as well as the feasibility of nailing the SRP to prevent peeling. The use of cementitious grout is highly relevant as it could overcome the issue of fire resistance and further reduce the cost of the strengthening system. Test results were compared to those from beams strengthened with carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) under the same experimental program. This preliminary work shows the high potential of SRP strengthening systems and identifies some critical issues that should be investigated next in order to optimize the effectiveness of the proposed strengthening solution.
Hospital Ownership Conversions: Defining the Appropriate Public Oversight Role

This paper reviews recent empirical evidence on the effects of hospital ownership conversions on quality of care and provision of public goods, such as uncompensated care, and presents new results on these topics based on hospital discharge data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Projects (HCUP) Nationwide Inpatient Sample. My analysis of these data reveals that conversion from government or private nonprofit to for-profit ownership has no effect on in-hospital mortality, but rates of pneumonia complications increased following conversion to for-profit status. Other research, discussed in the paper, found increased mortality rates following discharge from the hospital for patients admitted to hospitals that had converted to for-profit ownership. There was no effect of such conversions on the propensity to admit uninsured or Medicaid patients. Clearly, there is considerable heterogeneity in outcomes attributable to conversions. Overall, the evidence suggests a role for public scrutiny of hospital ownership conversions.
Polarization of the Nordic Labour Markets

Labour-market polarization is characterized by increased employment in occupations at the top but also at the bottom of the skills and wage distributions, followed by a relative decline in ‘middling’ occupations. This paper documents a polarization trend also in the Nordic labour markets and contrasts it to comparative findings for the USA. Analysis of the extent to which differences in wage development across skill groups have enhanced or attenuated this process of polarization in employment patterns suggests that the U-shaped pattern of employment change prevails also after controlling for concomitant changes in relative occupational wages. Hence, it seems that also the Nordic countries have experienced a shift from skill-biased technological change to non-routine-biased technological change – or, more likely, a combination of the two – and that this process has not been particularly dampened by compressed wage structures or relatively more rigid wages.
Investigating Security Issues in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is fast becoming an integral part of the Information Technology (IT) industry and looks set to only strengthen its share of the market. This paper discusses the different types of cloud computing technology and discusses the results of our research survey which was designed to examine the obstacles preventing organizations from adopting cloud (with a particular focus on the security issues). Future work will include the development and testing of an e-learning tool using virtualization, web services and open source platforms to assess the feasibility of adopting cloud technology with minimal security fears. The work will produce recommendations to organizations wishing to adopt cloud technology. Finally it will evaluate the effectiveness of the Cloud in the learning environment.
How Well are Earnings Measured in the Current Population Survey? Bias from Nonresponse and Proxy Respondents*

Christopher R. Bollinger Department of Economics University of Kentucky Lexington, KY 40506 Voice: (859)257-9524 Fax: (859)323-1920 e-mail: crboll@email.uky. edu hompage: http://gatton.uky. edu/faculty/bollinger Barry T. Hirsch Department of Economics Trinity University San Antonio, TX 78212-7200 Voice: (210)999-8112 Fax: (210)999-7255 e-mail: bhirsch@trinity.edu homepage: http://www.trinity.edu/bhirsch April 2007 Earnings nonresponse is currently about 30% in the CPS-ORG and 20% in the March CPS. Census imputes missing earnings by assigning nonrespondents the reported earnings of matched donors. Even if nonresponse is random, in a wage equation there exists severe “match bias” on coefficients attached to non-match imputation attributes (union status, industry, foreign-born, etc.) and imperfectly matched criteria (schooling, age, etc.). Bollinger-Hirsch (
Evolving Better Stoplists for Document Clustering and Web Intelligence

Text classification, document clustering and similar document analysis tasks are currently the subject of significant global research, since such areas underpin web intelligence, web mining, search engine design, and so forth. A fundamental tool in such document analysis tasks is a list of so-called 'stop' words, called a 'stoplist'. A stoplist is a specific collection of so-called 'noise' words, which tend to appear frequently in documents, but are believed to carry no usable information which would aid learning tasks, and so the idea is that the words in the stoplist are removed from the documents concerned before processing begins. It is well-known that the results of document classification experiments (for example) are invariably considerably improved when a stoplist is employed. Current stoplists in regular use are, however, rather outdated. We have explored this claim in recent work which produced new stoplists based on word-entropy over modem collections of documents. In this work we introduce the notion of optimising a stoplist, and use stochastic search in conjunction with k-means clustering to converge on stoplists which lead to better performance on certain tasks than any previously published.
Functional evaluation by gait analysis of various ankle-foot assemblies used by below-knee amputees

Twelve different prosthetic feet were tested by 10 male subjects with right below-knee amputations. Level walking with each prosthetic foot was investigated using a pair of force plates. Five parameters were selected to compare the functional characteristics of the feet: 1) step length, 2) walking velocity on the sound side in relation to the prosthetic side, 3) depth of valley in the pattern of the vertical component of the floor reaction force, 4) efficiency of the deceleration and acceleration by the prosthetic foot, and 5) irregular patterns in the wave form of the fore and aft components of the floor reaction force. Each of the above parameters was rated numerically. The total score of the objective evaluation attained by analysing the five parameters showed some coincidence to the results of subjective evaluation. However, a good correlation existed between the objective negative score and the subjective negative rating (p < 0.05). Non-axial feet developed recently, such as the SAFE II and Seattle Light feet achieved higher scores in the older age group, while single-axis feet, such as the LAPOC and Otto Bock feet achieved higher scores in the younger age group (p < 0.05).
Title of Document : CLINICAL COUPLES ’ AGGRESSIVE AND WITHDRAWAL COGNITIONS AND BEHAVIOR : THEIR INDEPENDENT AND COMBINED ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE RECIPIENTS ’ TRUST AND RELATIONSHIP COMMITMENT

Title of Document: CLINICAL COUPLES’ AGGRESSIVE AND WITHDRAWAL COGNITIONS AND BEHAVIOR: THEIR INDEPENDENT AND COMBINED ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE RECIPIENTS’ TRUST AND RELATIONSHIP COMMITMENT Kenneth Joel Parnell, Master of Science, 2009 Directed By: Professor Norman Epstein, Department of Family Science This study examined the relations of partners' aggressive cognitions and behavior s and withdrawal cognitions and behaviors with the recipient's trust in the partner and commitment to their relationship. It involved a secondary analysis of data from a s a ple of 82 couples who sought therapy at a university-based couple and family therapy cl inic serving the local community. The sample had been identified through pre-therapy assessments as experiencing some degree of psychological aggression and/o r mild to moderate physical aggression in their relationships. Relations between aggress ive thoughts and behaviors, as well as withdrawal thoughts and behaviors, and levels of the other partner's trust and commitment to the relationship were tested. Results i ndicated significant associations of greater aggressive and withdrawal behaviors an d cognitions with lower partner commitment and trust, and that cognitions are associated with pa rtner trust and commitment even when controlling for the individual’s associated behavior. CLINICAL COUPLES’ AGGRESSIVE AND WITHDRAWAL COGNITIONS AND BEHAVIOR: THEIR INDEPENDENT AND COMBINED ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE RECIPIENT’S TRUST AND RELATIONSHIP COMMITMENT
Temperature Differences in the Cepheid Instability Strip Require Differences in the Period-Luminosity Relation in Slope and Zero Point

A graphical and an algebraic demonstration is made to show why the slope and zero point of the Cepheid period-luminosity (P-L) relation is rigidly coupled with the slope and zero point of the Cepheid instability strip in the HR diagram. In this way it is shown why it is logically inconsistent to adopt a fixed P-L slope for all galaxies if the intrinsic color-period relations differ in slope for some of them. The graphical demonstration of this inconsistency uses an arbitrary (toy) ridgeline in the instability strip, while the algebraic demonstration uses the pulsation equation into which the observed P-L relations for the Galaxy and the LMC are put to predict the temperature zero points and slopes of the instability strips. Agreement between the predicted and the observed slopes in the instability strips argue that the observed P-L differences between the Galaxy and LMC are real. The direct evidence for different P-L slopes in different galaxies is displayed by comparing the Cepheid data in the Galaxy, the combined data in NGC 3351 and NGC 4321, in M31, LMC, SMC, IC 1613, NGC 3109, and in Sextans A+B. The P-L slopes for the Galaxy, NGC 3351, NGC 4321, and M31 are nearly identical and are the steepest in the sample. The P-L slopes decrease monotonically with metallicity in the order listed, showing that the P-L relation is not the same in different galaxies, complicating their use in calibrating the extragalactic distance scale.
An Efficient Approach for Service Process Reconfiguration in SOA with End-to-End QoS Constraints

Using SOA, service processes can be composed statically or dynamically using services provided by different service providers. Some services may become faulty at runtime and cause the service process to violate the end-to-end quality of service (QoS) constraint. We propose an efficient approach for replacing faulty services to ensure that the reconfigured service process still meets the original end-to-end QoS constraint. We use an iterative algorithm to identify reconfiguration regions that have a small number of services, some faulty and some healthy, in order to have more service selection options. By reconfiguring services in these selected regions rather than the whole service process, the computational complexity is significantly reduced. Simulation study has shown that our approach is efficient as most service processes can be repaired by replacing only a small number of services.
An application of a GA with Markov network surrogate to feature selection

Surrogate models of fitness have been presented as a way of reducing the number of fitness evaluations required by evolutionary algorithms. This is of particular interest with expensive fitness functions where the time taken for building the model is outweighed by the savings of using fewer function evaluations. In this article, we show how a Markov network model can be used as a surrogate fitness function for a genetic algorithm in a new algorithm called Markov Fitness Model Genetic Algorithm (MFM-GA). We thoroughly investigate its application to a fitness function for feature selection in Case-Based Reasoning (CBR), using a range of standard benchmarks from the CBR community. This fitness function requires considerable computation time to evaluate and we show that using the surrogate offers a significant decrease in total run-time compared to a GA using the true fitness function. This comes at the cost of a reduction in the global best fitness found. We demonstrate that the quality of the solutions obtained by MFM-GA improves significantly with model rebuilding. Comparisons with a classic GA, a GA using fitness inheritance and a selection of filter selection methods for CBR shows that MFM-GA provides a good trade-off between fitness quality and run-time.