Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Helical CT of the body: are settings adjusted for pediatric patients?

OBJECTIVE Our objective was to determine whether adjustments related to patient age are made in the scanning parameters that are determinants of radiation dose for helical CT of pediatric patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS This prospective investigation included all body (chest and abdomen) helical CT examinations (n = 58) of neonates, infants, and children (n = 32) referred from outside institutions for whom radiologic consultation was requested. Information recorded included tube current, kilovoltage, collimation, and pitch. Examinations were arbitrarily grouped on the basis of the individual's age: group A, 0-4 years; group B, 5-8 years; group C, 9-12 years; and group D, 13-16 years old. RESULTS Thirty-one percent (18/58) of the CT examinations were of the chest and 69% (40/58) were of the abdomen. Sixteen percent (9/58) of the CT examinations were combined chest and abdomen. In 22% (2/9) of these combined examinations, tube current was adjusted between the chest and abdomen CT; in one (11%) of these examinations, the tube current was higher for the chest than for the abdomen portion of the CT examination. The mean tube current setting for chest was 213 mA and was 206 mA for the abdomen, with no evident adjustment in tube current based on the age of the patient. Fifty-six percent of the examinations of neonates, infants, or children 8 years old or younger were performed at a collimation of greater than 5 mm and 53% of these examinations were performed using a pitch of 1.0. CONCLUSION Pediatric helical CT parameters are not adjusted on the basis of the examination type or the age of the child. In particular, these results suggest that pediatric patients may be exposed to an unnecessarily high radiation dose during body CT.
Long-Distance Dependency Resolution in Automatically Acquired Wide-Coverage PCFG-Based LFG Approximations

This paper shows how finite approximations of long distance dependency (LDD) resolution can be obtained automatically for wide-coverage, robust, probabilistic Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) resources acquired from treebanks. We extract LFG subcategorisation frames and paths linking LDD reentrancies from f-structures generated automatically for the Penn-II treebank trees and use them in an LDD resolution algorithm to parse new text. Unlike (Collins, 1999; Johnson, 2000), in our approach resolution of LDDs is done at f-structure (attribute-value structure representations of basic predicate-argument or dependency structure) without empty productions, traces and coindexation in CFG parse trees. Currently our best automatically induced grammars achieve 80.97% f-score for f-structures parsing section 23 of the WSJ part of the Penn-II treebank and evaluating against the DCU 1051 and 80.24% against the PARC 700 Dependency Bank (King et al., 2003), performing at the same or a slightly better level than state-of-the-art hand-crafted grammars (Kaplan et al., 2004).
Environmental determinants and temporal variation of amphibian habitat use in a temperate floodplain

The conservation of amphibians is of increasing relevance due to their ongoing and rapid decline. Alterations of floodplains are a major contributor to these declines in temperate Europe. In this study, we assessed the factors determining the abundance of four anuran species (Rana arvalis, Pelobates fuscus, Bombina bombina and Hyla arborea) in a dynamic floodplain in Central Europe during two hydrologically markedly differing years. We identified species responses to habitat characteristics using zero-inflated models. Only pond surface area explained the abundances of all species investigated in both years. Pond hydroperiod was the second most informative variable, determining site selection of all species except R. arvalis in both years independent from inter-annual landscape variability. Temporal variability in habitat use was determined by water chemistry and morphology of ponds in the year with frequent floods, whereas aspects of vegetation were more important in the year with the lower water level. Our results underline the importance of accounting for temporal variability of habitat use as facilitated by habitat heterogeneity in conservation planning.
T300A Variant of Autophagy ATG16L1 Gene is Associated with Decreased Antigen Sampling and Processing by Dendritic Cells in Pediatric Crohn's Disease

Background:The single-nucleotide polymorphism T300A of ATG16L1, a Crohn's disease (CD)–associated gene, is responsible for decreased autophagy. This study aimed to investigate the effects of this single-nucleotide polymorphism on the uptake and processing of antigens by dendritic cells (DCs) and the interaction between DC and intestinal epithelium in pediatric patients with CD. Methods:Pediatric patients who homozygously carry either the protective (wild type, n = 7) or risk allele (risk, n = 13) of ATG16L1, as well as heterozygous patients (het, n = 13) were enrolled. The monocyte-derived DC were analyzed for phenotype, antigen sampling, and processing by flow cytometry, whereas the capability of DC to form transepithelial protrusions was determined by confocal microscopy. Results:DC generated from wild type patients showed higher bacteria sampling and antigen processing compared with risk patients. Additionally, after exposure to either bacteria particles or the antigen DQ-ovalbumin, wild type DC showed a significant increase in the expression of the HLA-DR and CD86 when compared with risk DC. Interestingly, also het patients showed an impairment in bacteria uptake and expression of activation marker when compared with the wild type. In the Caco2/DC coculture, the formation of transepithelial protrusions were less numerous in risk DC compared with wild type and the antigen uptake decreased. Conclusions:DC of pediatric patients with CD carrying the T300A allele showed a marked impairment of antigen uptake and processing and defective interactions between DC and intestinal epithelium. Collectively, our results suggest that an autophagy defect is associated with an impairment of intestinal innate immunity in pediatric CD.
The role of cyclic AMP in chemoreception in the rabbit carotid body.

The present study identified physiological factors which influence the generation (and degradation) of cyclic AMP (cAMP) in the arterial chemoreceptor tissue of the mammalian carotid body. Experiments established a 3-way correlation between cAMP generation, neurotransmitter release from chemoreceptor cells, and carotid sinus nerve (CSN) activity. Incubation of carotid bodies in vitro for 10 min in media equilibrated with different low O2 ('hypoxic') gas mixtures (5% O2 or 10% O2, balance N2) elevated basal cAMP levels (100% O2 media) in proportion to the stimulus intensity. Similar experiments using nodose sensory ganglia showed that low O2 stimulation did not alter cAMP levels in this non-chemosensory tissue. However, the adenylate cyclase (AC) activator, forskolin (10 microM), evoked large increases in the cyclic nucleotide content in both carotid bodies and nodose ganglia. After chronic (10 days) CSN denervation or sympathectomy, the basal levels of cAMP in the carotid body were elevated; the cAMP response to low O2 media (stimulus minus control) was increased after CSN denervation but remained unaltered after sympathectomy. The effects of zero Ca2+ media on cAMP generation was examined in order to assess whether feedback from released neurotransmitters acting on known (presynaptic) type I cell receptors could have contributed to the observed changes in cAMP. Basal levels of cAMP were increased 2.8-fold, and the response to hypoxic stimulation was elevated 5-fold, in the absence of extracellular Ca2+. Forskolin (10 microM) did not alter basal release of [3H]-catecholamines ([3H]CA; synthesized from [3H]tyrosine), or resting CSN discharge; however, stimulus-evoked [3H]CA release and CSN discharge were potentiated in the presence of forskolin. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Criminal cycles in the illegal drug industry: A system dynamics approach applied to Colombia

The coca farming dynamics seem to partially follow the patterns of a long war against organized crime in Colombian. Since the early 80s, the cocaine market in the US and the rest of the world has been mainly supplied by Colombian cartels. Consequently, these illegal organizations have been targeted by Colombian and American law enforcement agencies. Our work argues that such policy has had a counter-intuitive effect which has contributed to increases in coca farming and reductions in cocaine prices. This paper hypothesizes that such situation was the consequence of the way that drug cartels were dismantled - thus the Colombian paradox. The consequences of the war against cartels may be assessed with the support of a dynamic theoretical framework and SD. This research assesses alternative policy for dismantling drug cartels.
Somatic symptoms of depression in elderly patients with medical comorbidities

Somatic symptoms of depression such as fatigue create a diagnostic dilemma when assessing an older patient with medical comorbidities, since chronic medical illnesses may produce similar symptoms. Alternatively, somatic symptoms attributed to medical illness may actually be caused by depression. These analyses were designed to determine if somatic symptoms in older patients are more strongly associated with chronic physical problems or with depression.
Efficient Reasoning With Consistent Proper Epistemic Knowledge Bases

Reasoning about the nested beliefs or knowledge of other agents is essential for many collaborative and competitive tasks. However, reasoning with nested belief (for example through epistemic logics) is computationally expensive. Proper Epistemic Knowledge Bases (PEKBs) address this by enforcing syntactic restrictions on the knowledge base. By compiling a PEKB and query formula into a specific normal form, entailment can be checked in polynomial time, which is sound and complete for the epistemic logic Kn. The downside is that the complexity of compiling into the normal form is exponential in time and space. In this work, we extend PEKBs to handle belief in the logic of KDn. We show that this simplifies the complexity of the required reasoning, and importantly, achieves polynomial entailment checking without first having to compile the PEKB into a normal form. Also, we present an alternative approach that calculates the closure of a PEKB, which is exponential in the maximum depth of nested belief, but for which entailment checking is constant on average.
Dose-related Methoxyflurane Nephrotoxicity in Rats: A Biochemical and Pathologic Correlation

Dose-related nephrotoxicity after administration of methoxyflurane was demonstrated in rats of the Fischer 344 strain. This was characterized by Pitressin-resistant polyuria, hypernatremia, serum hyperosmolality, and increased serum urea nitrogen and inorganic fluoride concentrations. Urinary sodium, potassium, osmolality, and urea nitrogen concentrations were decreased in proportion to the dose administered. Light and electron microscopic changes were most prominent in the proximal convoluted tubules and were also dose-related. Injection of inorganic fluoride produced changes in renal function and histology similar to those seen after administration of methoxyflurane. It was concluded that methoxyflurane produced dose-related nephrotoxicity due to increased concentrations of its metabolite, inorganic fluoride.
Potentials of Polyphenols in Bone-Implant Devices

Knowledge of bioactive plant-derived polyphenols is growing to such an extent that sci- ence interest is looking at development of different applications in regenerative medicine through new and state-of-the-art tissue engineering technologies. Due to their well-estab- lished and demonstrated antioxidant and anti-inflammatory beneficial properties, poly phenols have been extensively investigated to the extent that they provide benefits to different pathological conditions, including cardiovascular and bone diseases, neurode generative disorders, and cancer. By taking into account the main molecular pathways of polyphenols’ action, we want to focus this chapter on applications of polyphenols in bone-implant devices. In particular, results of polyphenols’ effects on bone cells and tissues following local delivery from innovative biomaterials will be discussed, together with preliminary in vivo tests. Purpose of the dissertation is to provide the reader new insights into knowledge of polyphenols not only regarding the different molecular mechanisms involved in their action but also the biological responses deriving from local applications.
The Chick Embryo as an Experimental System for Melanoma Cell Invasion

Background A primary cutaneous melanoma will not kill the patient, but its metastases. Since in vitro studies on melanoma cells in 2-D cultures do often not reflect reality, 3-D models might come closer to the physiological situation in the patient during cancer initiation and progression. Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we describe the chick embryo model for in vivo studies of melanoma cell migration and invasion. After transplantation of neural crest-derived melanoma cells into the neural tube, the melanoma cells resume neural crest cell migration along the medial and lateral pathways and finally undergo apoptosis in the target areas. Upon transplantation into ectopic areas such as the hindbrain or the optic cup malignant invasion and local tissue destruction occurs. In contrast, melanocytes are not able to spontaneously resume neural crest cell migration. However, malignant invasion can be induced in melanocytes by pre-treatment with the TGF-beta family members bone morphegenetic protein-2 or nodal. Transplantation of MCF7 breast cancer cells yields a different growth pattern in the rhombencephalon than melanoma cells. Conclusions/Significance The chick embryo model is a feasible, cost-effective in vivo system to study invasion by cancer cells in an embryonic environment. It may be useful to study invasive behavior induced by embryonic oncogenes and for targeted manipulation of melanoma or breast cancer cells aiming at ablation of invasive properties.
Observation and execution of movement: similarities demonstrated by quantified electroencephalography

Quantified electroencephalography (qEEG) was used to compare cerebral electrical variations while human subjects (10 males and 10 females) were observing and executing finger movements and while they were resting. Video recording enabled elimination of subjects performing involuntary movements. EEGs were recorded from 14 sites in seven frequency bands: theta 1, theta 2, alpha 1, alpha, beta 1, beta 2 and beta 3. Analyses were performed on logarithmically transformed absolute spectral power values. Both observation and execution of finger movements involved a decrease in spectral power compared with resting. This decrease was significant only for the alpha 1 frequency band (7.5–10.5 Hz) and it involved nine of the 14 electrode locations (F7, F8, F4, T6, T5, C3, C4, P3 and P4). This indicates that the motor cortex and the frontal cortex are specifically activated by both observation and execution of finger movements. These results provide evidence that observation and execution of movement share the same cortical network.
Multi-bit Adaptive Embedding Algorithm for Anti-forensic Steganography

Multi-bit minimum error replacement (MER) is a method that can embed multi-bit logo/secret data into k least-significant bits (LSBs) of cover data only introduces minimum embedding error (MEE). However, k-LSBs MER suffers from weak anti-forensics. Moreover, it is unfortunate because other previous steganography works have seldom considered both large embedding capacity and high image quality. Therefore, this work proposes an anti-forensic steganography system using multi-bit adaptive embedding algorithm with flexible bit location to overcome the problem of forensics and to achieve high performance includes both large embedding capacity and high image quality. The proposed embedding algorithm embeds and hides multi-bit (k-bit, k ≥ =1) logo/secret data into any adjoining (starting with the ith location) k-bit bibi-1⋯Kbi-k+1 of cover data only introduces MEE in the range of 0 to -±(2k-1)2i-k, moreover, its flexible bit location enhances the embedded security as security increases as embedding location increases. As the proposed embedding algorithm can embed multi-bit logo/secret data into any adjoining bits of cover data and has large embedding capacity and high embedding quality, this method was applied to develop image steganography systems. Finally, anti-forensics of the proposed steganography systems are demonstrated using the visual attack and the statistical attack of Chi-square analysis.
Keratins 8 and 18 are type II acute‐phase responsive genes overexpressed in human liver disease

Keratins (Ks) 7, 8, 18 and 19 constitute important markers and modifiers of liver disease. In mice, K8 and K18 are stress inducible and a dysregulated K8 > K18 stoichiometry predisposes to formation of Mallory–Denk bodies (MDBs), i.e. aggregates characteristic of chronic liver disorders such as alcoholic liver disease (ALD). In our study, we analyse the expression and the regulation of keratins in context of human liver disease.
Antimicrobial Drug Use and Macrolide-Resistant Streptococcus pyogenes, Belgium

In Belgium, decreasing macrolide, lincosamide, streptogramins B, and tetracycline use during 1997–2007 correlated significantly with decreasing macrolide-resistant Streptococcus pyogenes during 1999–2009. Maintaining drug use below a critical threshold corresponded with low-level macrolide-resistant S. pyogenes and an increased number of erm(A)-harboring emm77 S. pyogenes with low fitness costs.
Feature Selection for Activity Recognition in Multi-Robot Domains

In multi-robot settings, activity recognition allows a robot to respond intelligently to the other robots in its environment. Conditional random fields are temporal models that are well suited for activity recognition because they can robustly incorporate rich, non-independent features computed from sensory data. In this work, we explore feature selection in conditional random fields for activity recognition to choose which features should be included in the final model. We compare two feature selection methods, grafting, a greedy forward-selection strategy, and l1 regularization, which simultaneously smoothes the model and selects a subset of the features. We use robot data recorded during four games of the Small Size League of the RoboCup'07 robot soccer world championship to empirically compare the performance of the two feature selection algorithms in terms of accuracy of the final model, the number of features selected in the final model, and the time required to train the final model.
Hyperpolarization‐activated (Ih) currents in auditory brainstem neurons of normal and congenitally deaf mice

We have investigated the membrane properties of brainstem auditory neurons in a mouse model of congenital deafness (dn/dn). Whole‐cell recordings were made from visualized neurons in slices of the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB) and anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN). We have recently demonstrated that MNTB neurons in deaf mice are more excitable than in normal mice, due in part to a reduced expression of low‐threshold potassium currents. In this study, we have examined the contribution of hyperpolarization‐activated (Ih) channels to the membrane properties of MNTB and AVCN neurons. Our results show that Ih is larger in MNTB neurons from deaf mice than in normal mice. In contrast, no significant differences were found in Ih or excitability between AVCN bushy cells from dn/dn and normal mice. Experimental evidence and neuronal modelling suggests that, in the MNTB of normal mice, a small contribution of Ih helps to reduce temporal summation of synaptic potentials. A larger Ih in neurons from deaf mice has a much greater effect in reducing temporal summation of synaptic potentials, counteracting to some extent the greater excitability of these cells. Our results provide further insight into the role of activity during development in regulating the membrane and firing properties of central neurons.
A Family of Rank Similarity Measures Based on Maximized Effectiveness Difference

Rank similarity measures provide a method for quantifying differences between search engine results without the need for relevance judgments. For example, the providers of a search service might use such measures to estimate the impact of a proposed algorithmic change across a large number of queries-perhaps millions-identifying those queries where the impact is greatest. In this paper, we propose and validate a family of rank similarity measures, each derived from an associated effectiveness measure. Each member of the family is based on the maximization of effectiveness difference under this associated measure. Computing this maximized effectiveness difference (MED) requires the solution of an optimization problem that varies in difficulty, depending on the associated measure. We present solutions for several standard effectiveness measures, including nDCG, AP, and ERR. Through an experimental validation, we show that MED reveals meaningful differences between retrieval runs. Mathematically, MED is a metric, regardless of the associated measure. Prior work has established a number of other desiderata for rank similarity in the context of search, and we demonstrate that MED satisfies these requirements. Unlike previous proposals, MED allows us to directly translate assumptions about user behavior from any established effectiveness measure to create a corresponding rank similarity measure. In addition, MED cleanly accommodates partial relevance judgments, and if complete relevance information is available, it reduces to a simple difference between effectiveness values.
Life Cycle Assessment ENVIRONMENTAL PROFILE OF COTTON AND POLYESTER-COTTON FABRICS

The aim of this study was to increase the knowledge of environmental impact associated with producing fabrics for hotel textile services. The project was carried out in two parts: studies on hotel textiles and on textile services in three major Scandinavian laundering companies. This paper presents the results of the hotel textile study. The environmental impact was studied by applying the main principles of the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Life-cycle assessments provide useful information on the quantities of energy and resources consumed and emissions associated with production systems. The impact assessment is still under development but some scenarios have been made to describe possible local, regional and global environmental consequences of the system under study. The inventory calculations proved that cotton fibre production consumes about 40% less energy than polyester fibre production. Cotton growing requires, however, huge amounts of water: irrigated amounts vary from 7 to 29 tons per kg of raw cotton fibres. Pesticides and fertilizers used in traditional cotton cultivation have ecotoxic effects in contrast to organic cotton cultivation, where natural alternatives to agrochemicals are used. It could also be concluded that 50/50 CO/PES sheets in hotel use have fewer environmental impacts than 100% CO sheets. This is due to the higher durability as well as lower laundering energy requirements of 50/50 CO/PES sheets.