Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Outcome of children with centrally reviewed low‐grade gliomas treated with chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy on Children's Cancer Group high‐grade glioma study CCG‐945

The objectives of the current study were to determine the outcome of children who were treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy on the Children's Cancer Group (CCG) high‐grade glioma protocol (CCG‐945) who were diagnosed with low‐grade gliomas on post hoc central pathologic review and to identify clinical and biologic features associated with prognosis.
One Click Forward and Two Clicks Back: Portrayal of Women Using Computers in Television Commercials

A sample of 351 television commercials aired in prime time during the 1998 season revealed that while women are shown as computer users almost as frequently as men, they are significantly more likely to be depicted as clerical workers, and less likely to be portrayed as business professionals. While previous studies have examined magazine advertisements for computer products, this is the first known examination of television commercials depicting computer use, and thus provides important benchmark data.
Routine Cerebrospinal Fluid Enterovirus Polymerase Chain Reaction Testing Reduces Hospitalization and Antibiotic Use for Infants 90 Days of Age or Younger

OBJECTIVE. The goal was to evaluate the impact of cerebrospinal fluid enterovirus polymerase chain reaction testing on the length of hospitalization and the duration of antibiotic use for infants ≤90 days of age with suspected aseptic meningitis. METHODS. This retrospective cohort study was conducted at an urban, tertiary-care children's hospital. Data were collected for 478 patients ≤90 days of age for whom cerebrospinal fluid enterovirus polymerase chain reaction testing was performed during the enteroviral seasons of 2000 to 2006. The length of hospitalization and the duration of antibiotic use were assessed. RESULTS. Cerebrospinal fluid enterovirus polymerase chain reaction test results were positive for 154 patients (34.8%). The mean length of stay was 3.65 days. The median polymerase chain reaction turnaround time was 23 hours. In multivariate analysis, having a positive cerebrospinal fluid enterovirus polymerase chain reaction result was associated with a 1.54-day decrease in the length of stay and a 33.7% shorter duration of antibiotic use. When patients were stratified according to the presence or absence of pleocytosis, both groups demonstrated significant reductions in the length of stay with positive cerebrospinal fluid enterovirus polymerase chain reaction results (1.32 and 1.38 days, respectively). Furthermore, increasing the polymerase chain reaction turnaround time by 24 hours increased the length of stay by 13.6% for patients with positive cerebrospinal fluid enterovirus polymerase chain reaction results. CONCLUSIONS. Having positive cerebrospinal fluid enterovirus polymerase chain reaction results decreases the length of hospitalization and the duration of antibiotic use for young infants. These results support the routine use of this test during periods of peak enterovirus prevalence.
Non-saturated Throughput Analysis of IEEE 802.11 Ad Hoc Networks

This letter presents a simple but accurate analytical model to evaluate the throughput of IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function in non-saturated conditions. The influence of offered load on the throughput of both basic and RTS/CTS access mechanisms are analyzed and compared. It's shown that basic access scheme can achieve the same maximal throughput as that of RTS/CTS mechanism in non-saturated conditions while the latter is robust to the number of contending stations compared to basic mechanism. The analytical results are validated by extensive simulations.
A colorimetric method for measurement of carbamylated haemoglobin in patients with chronic kidney disease using a spectrophotometer

Haemoglobin carbamylation occurs when isocyanate; a spontaneous breakdown product of urea reacts with the terminal valine residues of the α and β polypeptide chains of haemoglobin (Hb). Hb carbamylation depends on the duration of exposure t o high levels of urea. Carbamylated haemoglobin (CHB) is thus elevated in renal failure. The aim of this study was to develop a colorimetric method fo r the measurement of CHB in patients with renal failu re. Twenty patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and twenty persons with normal renal function were recruited in the study to determine their blood levels of CHB. CHB was measured using a color imetric method. Mean CHB levels were significantly higher in the CKD patients (107.5±16. 2) than in the normal controls (65±11.9); CHB expressed as microgram valine hydantoin per gram Hb (μgVH/gHb). There was significant correlation between CHB and urea, creatinine and Hb concentrati on, r=0.832, r=0.566 and r=-0.733 respectively. Following multiple regression analysis, urea was th e only predictor of CHB. At a CHB cut off level of 100μgVH/gHb, the sensitivity and specificity of thi s test to identify persons with CKD from those with normal renal function was 95% and 80% respectively. CHB levels can be determined with reasonable accuracy using a colorimetric method.
(cid:1) , (cid:2) -Unsaturated aldehydes contained in cigarette smoke elicit IL-8 release in pulmonary cells through mitogen-activated protein kinases

, (cid:2) -Unsaturated aldehydes contained in cigarette smoke elicit IL-8 release in pulmonary cells through mitogen-activated protein kinases. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 296: L839–L848, 2009. Cigarette smoking is the major risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a syndrome characterized by pulmonary neutrophil inﬁltration, chronic inﬂammation, and progressive tissue destruction. We examined here the acute effect of aqueous cigarette smoke extract (CSE) and of two (cid:1) , (cid:2) -unsaturated aldehydes (acrolein and crotonaldehyde) contained in CSE in cultured normal human lung ﬁbroblasts and small airway epithelial cells. By examining a panel of 19 cytokines and chemokines, we found that IL-8 release was elevated by CSE as well as by acrolein, whereas other inﬂammatory mediators were mostly unaf-fected. CSE-evoked IL-8 release was mimicked by acrolein and crotonaldehyde at concentrations (3–60 (cid:3) M each) found in CSE and fully prevented by 1 mM (cid:1) , (cid:2) -unsaturated aldehydes scavengers N -acetylcys-teine (NAC) or sodium 2-mercaptoethanesulfonate. Neither the saturated aldehyde acetaldehyde nor H 2 O 2 evoked IL-8 release. In addition, CSE or crotonaldehyde upregulated the release of IL-8 from alveolar macrophages from both COPD patients and healthy nonsmokers, indicating that this is a response common to cells involved in lung inﬂammation. CSE-evoked IL-8 release was accompanied by increased phosphorylation of p38 MAPK and ERK1/2. CSE-evoked p38 and ERK1/2 phosphorylation was mimicked by acrolein and inhibited by NAC. IL-8 release elicited by both acrolein and CSE was blocked by pharmacological inhibition of p38 and ERK1/2 phosphorylation. In summary, our data show that (cid:1) , (cid:2) -unsaturated aldehydes-evoked phosphorylation of p38 and ERK1/2 underlies IL-8 release elicited by CSE, thus shedding light on the mechanisms through which cigarette smoke can initiate inﬂammation in the lung.
Object-Oriented Packet Caching for ICN

One of the most discussed features offered by Information-centric Networking (ICN) architectures is the ability to support packet-level caching at every node in the network. By individually naming each packet, ICN allows routers to turn their queueing buffers into packet caches, thus exploiting the network's existing storage resources. However, the performance of packet caching at commodity routers is restricted by the small capacity of their SRAM, which holds the index for the packets stored at the, slower, DRAM. We therefore propose Object-oriented Packet Caching (OPC), a novel caching scheme that overcomes the SRAM bottleneck, by combining object-level indexing in the SRAM with packet-level storage in the DRAM. We implemented OPC and experimentally evaluated it over various cache placement policies, showing that it can enhance the impact of ICN packet-level caching, reducing both network and server load.
Filtering Nogoods Lazily in Dynamic Symmetry Breaking During Search

The generation and GAC enforcement of a large number of weak nogoods in Symmetry Breaking During Search (SBDS) is costly and often not worthwhile in terms of prunings. In this paper, we propose weak-nogood consistency (WNC) for nogoods and a lazy propagator for SBDS (and its variants) using watched literal technology. We give formal results on the strength and relatively low space and time complexities of the lazy propagator. Nogoods collected for each symmetry are increasing. We further define generalized weak-incNGs consistency (GWIC) for a conjunction of increasing nogoods, and give a lazy propagator for the incNGs global constraint. We prove GWIC on a conjunction is equivalent to WNC on individual nogoods, and give the space and time complexities. Various lazy versions of SBDS and its variants are implemented. We give experimentation to demonstrate the efficiency of the lazy versions as compared to state of the art symmetry breaking methods.
Video stitching for handheld inputs via combined video stabilization

Stitching videos captured by handheld devices is very useful, but also very challenging due to the heavy and independent shakiness in the videos. In this paper, we propose a hand-taken video stitching method which combines the techniques of video stitching and stabilization together into a unified optimization framework. In this way, our method can compute the most optimal stabilization and stitching results with respect to each other, which outperforms previous methods that take stabilization and stitching as separate operations. Our method is based on the framework of bundled camera paths [Liu et al. 2013]. We present a novel unified camera paths optimization formulation which consists of two stabilization terms and one stitching term. We also present a corresponding iterative solver that finds best stitching and stabilization solutions numerically. We compare our method with previous methods, and the experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.
Dependability evaluation of cloud infrastructures

Cloud computing is a model that resources such as storage, applications and networking infrastructures can be offered as services over the internet. Cloud applications are becoming ever larger and more complex with high availability requirement. This paper presents a modeling strategy based on a hierarchical and heterogeneous modeling for planning of cloud infrastructures. The modeling strategy allows the selection of cloud infrastructures according to dependability and cost requirements. A case study based on virtual learning environments hosted on Eucalyptus platform is adopted to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed modeling strategy.
Observations on the patterns of embryonic mortality over the laying season of pheasants

1. Embryonic mortality of domestic pheasant ( Phasianus colchinus ) eggs was recorded for a 10-week laying season for two groups of laying hens maintained under mating ratios of 8:1 and 12:1 (females:males). 2. Mating ratio had no significant effect on embryonic mortality between 1 and 4 or 5 and 20 d but values for these categories doubled as the laying season progressed, both rising to 8% to 9% of fertile eggs. 3. Higher embryonic mortality was observed between 21 and 25 d for the eggs from the 8:1 mating ratio (14.5% of fertile eggs compared with 12.1%) but this was unaffected by week of setting. 4. Reasons for these patterns of embryonic mortality were not clear and further research is needed to determine the factors affecting embryonic mortality in pheasants.
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GAFFKYA HOMARI, AEROCOCCUS VIRIDANS, TETRAD-FORMING COCCI FROM MEAT CURING BRINES, AND THE GENUS PEDIOCOCCUS

Snieszko and Taylor (1947), and Hitchner and Snieszko (1947) described gram-positive, tetradforming micrococci associated with a septicemic disease of lobsters. These organisms grew poorly on laboratory media unless a fermentable sugar was added. They were further characterized by their ability to ferment mannitol and their inability to reduce nitrate or to hydrolyze gelatin. Because of their morphology and pathogenicity for the lobster, the authors suggested a new species, Gaffkya homari. In 1951, Dr. W. S. Sturges, Jr., of The Cudahy Packing Company Laboratory, Omaha, Nebraska, submitted to this laboratory two strains of cocci which had been isolated from cured meat products. These microorganisms were characterized by small colony formation on ordinary laboratory agar media, tendency to occur as tetrads, and ability to produce a greenish discoloration of cured meat products. Aaronson (1956) also obtained two cultures of these tetradforming cocci from Dr. Sturges and noted that they appeared to be identical to G. homari with respect to morphology, minimal nutritional requirements, and biochemical characteristics. Williams et al. (1953) attempted to enumerate the oral streptococei from the air of occupied rooms by the use of a selective culture medium containing potassium tellurite and crystal violet. They noted the frequent occurrence of a unique coccus that had biochemical characteristics similar to the enterococci. But, no tendency toward chain formation could be demonstrated. These microorganisms were catalase-negative, grew in the presence of 40 per cent bile, and produced strong greening on blood agar. In view of these unique features, the authors proposed a new genus and species, Aerococcus viridans. The present report describes a group of tetrad-
The Use and Limitations of Filter-paper Electrophoresis

In 1935 Tiselius, using the apparatus he had devised in 1930, demonstrated that human serum globulin fell into three reasonably defined groups based on their electrophoretic mobilities. For the next 15 years a steady flood of papers reported the fluctuations of albumin and the globulins in young and old, in health and disease, as disclosed by analyses carried out using Tiselius apparatus with and without the numerous minor modifications which were introduced. In spite of brilliant efforts at simplification it was evident that the method, because of its relative complexity, could never have widespread use in routine clinical chemistry. In 1950 three groups of workers, among them Tiselius himself, described methods which indicated that, using filter paper as a matrix, a relatively cheap and rapid method could be evolved of obtaining a rough analysis of the serum proteins akin to the analysis obtained by the classical technique. The method required no more than 0.5 ml. of serum, and though estimates of the total protein concentration would still have to be made by other means, it was conceivable that this simple technique would dispense with the tedious salt fractionation and subsequent analyses required heretofore to obtain the albumin/globulin ratio. The last four years have produced a spate of papers devoted to the description of modifications in methods of separation and analysis with numerous technical and mathematical tricks for improving the correlation of the results with the substantial body of data already obtained with the classical technique. With few notable exceptions scant attention was paid to the fundamental principles underlying the technique or to the points in which their application to it differed from the classical procedure. As paper succeeded paper it became increasingly evident that except within fairly wide limits the two methods were not quantitatively comparable. Even worse, because of lack of time spent on a consideration of the basic principles involved,
Assessing and Harmonizing Lying Deadwood Volume with Regional Forest Inventory Data in Wallonia (Southern Region of Belgium)

Using lying deadwood or coarse woody debris (CWD) as an indicator of biodiversity and of sustainable forest management is on the rise among national and local forest inventories. Nevertheless choosing the most suitable sampling method is difficult as it depends mostly on CWD abundance and dimensions. In addition the CWD volume estimates of different regional inventories are rarely comparable. We therefore tested two generally recommended methods for lying deadwood: line intersect sampling and fixed area sampling. We assessed both methods in plots of the regional forest inventory of Wallonia (southern region of Belgium). Next we developed bridging functions that converts CWD volume estimates to estimates that would have been obtained with different thresholds. Results about precision and time requirement are very slightly in favour of the line intersect sampling method. Nevertheless, we have noted that this method has several drawbacks, especially in the context of a regional and multi-resource inventory. Beside the established bridging functions indicate that CWD volume estimate from the Walloon forest inventories should be reduced by 20% in order to be internationally harmonized.
Combined deletion of Pten and p53 in mammary epithelium accelerates triple-negative breast cancer with dependency on eEF2K

The tumor suppressors Pten and p53 are frequently lost in breast cancer, yet the consequences of their combined inactivation are poorly understood. Here, we show that mammary‐specific deletion of Pten via WAP‐Cre, which targets alveolar progenitors, induced tumors with shortened latency compared to those induced by MMTV‐Cre, which targets basal/luminal progenitors. Combined Pten‐p53 mutations accelerated formation of claudin‐low, triple‐negative‐like breast cancer (TNBC) that exhibited hyper‐activated AKT signaling and more mesenchymal features relative to Pten or p53 single‐mutant tumors. Twenty‐four genes that were significantly and differentially expressed between WAP‐Cre:Pten/p53 and MMTV‐Cre:Pten/p53 tumors predicted poor survival for claudin‐low patients. Kinome screens identified eukaryotic elongation factor‐2 kinase (eEF2K) inhibitors as more potent than PI3K/AKT/mTOR inhibitors on both mouse and human Pten/p53‐deficient TNBC cells. Sensitivity to eEF2K inhibition correlated with AKT pathway activity. eEF2K monotherapy suppressed growth of Pten/p53‐deficient TNBC xenografts in vivo and cooperated with doxorubicin to efficiently kill tumor cells in vitro. Our results identify a prognostic signature for claudin‐low patients and provide a rationale for using eEF2K inhibitors for treatment of TNBC with elevated AKT signaling.
Dermatophytosis caused by Microsporum gypseum in infants: report of four cases and review of the literature

Dermatophytosis caused by Microsporum gypseum is rare, especially in infants, with few published cases. Diagnosis in this age group is frequently delayed. We review the literature and report 4 new cases of tinea of glabrous skin caused by M. gypseum mimicking eczema in infants. Considering new and previously reported cases, half of patients were exposed to sand, emphasizing the importance of this transmission vehicle in this age group. In conclusion, although rare, dermatophytosis by M. gypseum should be part of the differential diagnosis of inflammatory dermatosis in infants. A clinical suspicion and the availability of culture are keys to the diagnosis.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports the Role of Macro Effects Unemployment Benefits and Unemployment in the Great Recession: the Role of Macro Effects

paper presents preliminary findings and is being distributed to economists and other interested readers solely to stimulate discussion and elicit comments. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors. Abstract We exploit a policy discontinuity at U.S. state borders to identify the labor market implications of unemployment benefit extensions. In contrast to the existing literature that focused on estimating the effects of benefit duration on job search decisions by the unemployed—the micro effect—we are guided by equilibrium labor market theory and focus on measuring the general equilibrium macro effect that operates through the response of job creation to benefit extensions. After developing a new methodology to measure the macro effect, we find that it is this effect that is very important quantitatively. In particular, benefit extensions raise equilibrium wages and lead to a sharp contraction in vacancy creation, lower employment, and a rise in unemployment. Conference " Structural Empirical Microeconomic Models " for their comments. The authors are especially grateful to June Shelp, from the Conference Board, for her help with the HWOL (Help Wanted OnLine) data. Support from the National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. SES-0922406 and SES-1357903) is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.
Genetic Interactions Implicating Postreplicative Repair in Okazaki Fragment Processing

Ubiquitination of the replication clamp proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) at the conserved residue lysine (K)164 triggers postreplicative repair (PRR) to fill single-stranded gaps that result from stalled DNA polymerases. However, it has remained elusive as to whether cells engage PRR in response to replication defects that do not directly impair DNA synthesis. To experimentally address this question, we performed synthetic genetic array (SGA) analysis with a ubiquitination-deficient K164 to arginine (K164R) mutant of PCNA against a library of S. cerevisiae temperature-sensitive alleles. The SGA signature of the K164R allele showed a striking correlation with profiles of mutants deficient in various aspects of lagging strand replication, including rad27Δ and elg1Δ. Rad27 is the primary flap endonuclease that processes 5’ flaps generated during lagging strand replication, whereas Elg1 has been implicated in unloading PCNA from chromatin. We observed chronic ubiquitination of PCNA at K164 in both rad27Δ and elg1Δ mutants. Notably, only rad27Δ cells exhibited a decline in cell viability upon elimination of PRR pathways, whereas elg1Δ mutants were not affected. We further provide evidence that K164 ubiquitination suppresses replication stress resulting from defective flap processing during Okazaki fragment maturation. Accordingly, ablation of PCNA ubiquitination increased S phase checkpoint activation, indicated by hyperphosphorylation of the Rad53 kinase. Furthermore, we demonstrate that alternative flap processing by overexpression of catalytically active exonuclease 1 eliminates PCNA ubiquitination. This suggests a model in which unprocessed flaps may directly participate in PRR signaling. Our findings demonstrate that PCNA ubiquitination at K164 in response to replication stress is not limited to DNA synthesis defects but extends to DNA processing during lagging strand replication.
Are All Spatial Reference Frames Egocentric? Reinterpreting Evidence for Allocentric, Object-Centered, or World-Centered Reference Frames

The use and neural representation of egocentric spatial reference frames is well-documented. In contrast, whether the brain represents spatial relationships between objects in allocentric, object-centered, or world-centered coordinates is debated. Here, I review behavioral, neuropsychological, neurophysiological (neuronal recording), and neuroimaging evidence for and against allocentric, object-centered, or world-centered spatial reference frames. Based on theoretical considerations, simulations, and empirical findings from spatial navigation, spatial judgments, and goal-directed movements, I suggest that all spatial representations may in fact be dependent on egocentric reference frames.