Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are Uterine Risk Factors More Important Than Nodal Status in Predicting Survival in Endometrial Cancer?

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate factors associated with survival after lymphadenectomy for endometrial cancer and to address their effect relating to systemic therapy. METHODS: This was a retrospective, population-based cohort study of 316 women with endometrial cancer who underwent surgery including lymphadenectomy in Ontario, Canada, from 1996–2000. Data obtained from administrative databases included comorbidities, socioeconomic status, grade, myometrial invasion, cervical involvement, lymphovascular-space invasion, nodal status, and adjuvant pelvic radiotherapy. Primary outcome was 5-year overall survival. Factors associated with survival were identified in a multivariable Cox proportional hazards model. RESULTS: Mean age was 62.2 years (±11.6 years). Thirty-eight women (12%) had positive pelvic nodes. Seventy-five (23.7%) received adjuvant pelvic radiotherapy. Age older than 60, grade 3 tumor, deep myometrial invasion (greater than 50%), and cervical stromal involvement were associated with a higher risk of death compared with reference categories. There were no survival differences according to comorbidities, socioeconomic status, or lymphovascular-space invasion. Five-year overall survival was 53.1% for node-negative patients with two or three uterine risk factors and 75.0% for node-positive patients with none or only one uterine risk factor. Pelvic-node status was not an independent determinant of survival (positive nodes: hazard ratio 1.39, 95% confidence interval 0.89–2.18). CONCLUSION: High-risk uterine factors including grade 3 tumor, deep myometrial invasion, and cervical stromal involvement are more significant determinants of survival in endometrial cancer than pelvic-node status. Uterine risk factors should be considered, regardless of nodal status, when offering systemic therapy to maximize survival outcomes. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II
Average Symbol Error Probability of General-Order Rectangular Quadrature Amplitude Modulation of Optical Wireless Communication Systems Over Atmospheric Turbulence Channels

Using an accurate exponential bound for the Gaussian Q-function, we derive simple approximate closed-form expressions for the average symbol error probability (ASEP) of a free-space optical communication link using subcarrier intensity modulation (SIM) with general-order rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) over atmospheric turbulence channels. To model the atmospheric turbulence conditions, the log-normal and the gamma-gamma distribution are used. Extensive numerical and computer simulation results are presented in order to verify the accuracy of the proposed mathematical analysis.
IMMUNOGLOBULIN SPOTS ON THE SURFACE OF RABBIT LYMPHOCYTES

Small and medium lymphocytes from the peripheral blood and lymphoid tissues of the rabbit react in suspension with antibodies directed against different immunoglobulin determinants. Through immunofluorescence, it was possible to show that numerous discrete spots on the surface of the positive lymphocytes carry immunoglobulin molecules. The positive lymphocytes are about one-half of all lymphocytes in the different preparations; thymus lymphocytes are all negative. With antisera specific for rabbit IgM as well as with antisera directed against allotypic determinants specific for IgM or IgG, it was possible to show that about nine-tenths of the immunoglobulin-positive lymphocytes carry IgM molecules on their surface. With antisera directed against a- and b-locus determinants, it was also possible to demonstrate that both heavy and light chains were present in the surface immunoglobulins. Furthermore, in animals which were heterozygous at the a or the b locus, it was found that each lymphocyte had immunoglobulins synthesized under the influence of only one of two alleles. A very small proportion of lymphocytes could be shown to have a specific surface reaction with one antigen (horse ferritin); the proportion of these cells increased very much after immunization.
Deep networks for robust visual recognition

Deep Belief Networks (DBNs) are hierarchical generative models which have been used successfully to model high dimensional visual data. However, they are not robust to common variations such as occlusion and random noise. We explore two strategies for improving the robustness of DBNs. First, we show that a DBN with sparse connections in the first layer is more robust to variations that are not in the training set. Second, we develop a probabilistic denoising algorithm to determine a subset of the hidden layer nodes to unclamp. We show that this can be applied to any feedforward network classifier with localized first layer connections. Recognition results after denoising are significantly better over the standard DBN implementations for various sources of noise.
Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Therapy Used in Conjunction with Group Counseling for Married Couples

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a combination of Transactional Analysis and Gestalt therapy used in conjunction with group counseling for married couples. Six couples and 12 control-group membersparticipated in the study. Participants were administered a pre/post measure on the Tennessee SelfConcept Scale to assess changes in the level of their self-esteem. The results revealed significant changes in acceptance of self in relationship to other people. In addition, a directional change was noted in improved self-concepts with relation to the family. This combination approach warrants consideration for those involved in marital counseling.
The Relationship between Attentional Processes and Social Referencing in Infants at High and Low Genetic Risk for Autism

The present study investigated differences in social referencing and visual attention (e.g., attention to objects, attention to faces, and attention disengagement), and importantly, the extent to which variability in visual attention was related to social referencing among 11- and 16-month-old infants at high and low genetic risk for autism. Results indicate that HR infants referenced adults at a lower rate than did LR infants. Notably, 16-month-old infants later diagnosed with ASD referenced adults less frequently than typically-developing (TD) and non-typical (NT) infants, which suggests social referencing may be a promising early marker of ASD. When 16-month-olds were attending to the face, HR infants spent a smaller proportion of time looking at the top half of the face than LR infants. This finding indicates that HR infants distributed their attention within the face differently. In addition, associations between visual attention measures and variability in social referencing were found only among LR infants. Increased looking to the top half of the face was related to higher rates of social referencing in LR 16-month-olds. Conversely, LR 16-month-olds’ increased looking to objects was related to lower rates of social referencing. Broadly, results support the idea that visual attention indices are related to successful social referencing. As the first study known to identify correlations between visual attention and social referencing, these findings suggest that further investigation of the co-occurring development of visual attention and social-communicative behaviors in infancy is warranted.
Thematic Identification of 'Little Science': Trends in Portuguese IS&LS Literature by Controlled Vocabulary and Co-Word Analysis

This study presents an overview of IS&LS thematic trends in Portugal between 2001 and 2012. The results were obtained by means of an analysis, using expeditious qualitative and quantitative techniques, of the bibliographic records of proceedings papers identified during this period. These records were processed using two techniques: a manual subject classification and an automated co-word analysis of the Author-Assigned Keywords. From this we designed cluster and co-occurrence maps, using the VOSviewer and the Pajek software packages. The results indicated an accentuated dynamism in the thematic evolution of this documental corpus, apart from revealing a significant difference among the themes transmitted in nationally and internationally visible production.
Percentile Performance Estimation of Unreliable IaaS Clouds and Their Cost-Optimal Capacity Decision

Through Internet, a cloud computing system provides shared resources, data, and information to users or tenant users in an on-demand and pay-as-you-go styles. It delivers large-scale utility computing services to a wide range of consumers. To ensure that their provisioned service is acceptable, cloud providers must exploit techniques and mechanisms that meet the service-level-agreement (SLA) performance commitment to their clients. Thus, performance issues of cloud infrastructures have been receiving considerable attention by both researchers and practitioners as a prominent activity for improving service quality. This paper presents an analytical approach to percentile-based performance analysis of unreliable infrastructure-as-a-service clouds. The proposed analytical model is capable of calculating percentiles of the request response time under variable load intensities, fault frequencies, multiplexing abilities, and instantiation processing time. A case study based on a real-world cloud is carried out to prove the correctness of the proposed theoretical model. To achieve optimal performance-cost tradeoff, we formulate the performance model into an optimal capacity decision problem for cost minimization subjected to the constraints of request rejection and SLA violation rates. We show that the optimization problem can be numerically solved through a simulated-annealing method.
Trafficking defects in WASH-knockout fibroblasts originate from collapsed endosomal and lysosomal networks

WASH regulates endosomal sorting, but its roles are ill defined. WASH-knockout MEFs display enlarged yet ordered endosomes without aberrant tubulation and a collapsed lysosomal network. Without WASH, EGFR is basally degraded, whereas TfnR is not, which supports discrete receptor trafficking via WASH-dependent and WASH-independent mechanisms.
[Teenage tobacco consumption in five Colombian cities].

INTRODUCTION The consumption of tobacco is a public health problem around the world. In Colombia, each year approximately 17,000 deaths are attributed to smoking. The monitoring of tobacco consumption is necessary to estimate population risk for chronic diseases and cancer. OBJECTIVE The prevalence of smoking was estimated and factors assessed that influence the use of tobacco among youths. MATERIALS AND METHODS The survey was implemented by the Colombian National Cancer Institute in 2007, in public and private schools located in 5 cities in Colombia. The survey was anonymous, voluntary and self-processed by students 13 to 15 years of age and the participants selected by a multi-stage sampling process. Statistical analysis was performed with SUDAAN software. Differences in proportions were considered statistically significant at the p<0.05 level. RESULTS The average age of onset for tobacco consumption in the five cities was 11.9 years. The prevalence of cigarette smoking varied between 7.4% and 34.1% among the cities and susceptibility to initiate smoking among non smokers was between 12.3% to 32.0%. Between 40% and 60% of students were exposed to secondhand smoke in public places. Approximately 70% were exposed to indirect tobacco advertising. Between 40% and 69% of students who currently smoke cigarettes reported that they wanted to stop smoking. Approximately 80% of students who currently smoke cigarettes were not refused when they purchased cigarettes in a store or supermarket. Finally, 34% to 54% of students reported having been taught in school about the harmful effects of smoking. CONCLUSIONS The high prevalence of consumption in four of the five cities suggested interventions that aim primarily at prevention components, smoke-free spaces and advertising control.
Clinical Measurement of Normal Maximum Mouth Opening in Children

Abstract This study was designed to find a method of assessing maximum mouth opening (MMO), using a tool that is proportional to the body size. One hundred two (102) children were selected to participate in the study. MMO, the width of three fingers (index, middle and ring fingers), four fingers (index, middle, ring and little fingers), body height, weight and age of each child were recorded, and the ability of each subject to position the fingers, vertically aligned between the upper and lower central incisors with the mouth maximally open, was documented. All subjects were able to position three fingers between the upper and lower central incisors, while only 37 (36.3%) were able to position four fingers. MMO was significantly different from the width of three and four fingers and was positively correlated with both weight and height and with age. Height, weight, and age showed a moderate to strong correlation with all finger measurements; no gender significant difference was observed for MMO. The findings of this study suggest that the ability to position three fingers between the upper and lower incisors with the mouth wide open can be considered a simple method to quickly evaluate MMO, but that it is not highly reliable.
A Parallel-Segmented Monolithic Step-Up Transformer

This letter proposes a parallel-segmentation method of a step-up transformer that simultaneously improves the impedance transformation ratio and passive efficiency. A corresponding scalable segmentation-based model is also developed on a silicon substrate case. Implementation of the proposed transformer using 0.18 μm CMOS technology successfully demonstrated impedance transformation from 50 Ω to 5.3 Ω with a minimum insertion loss of 1.52 dB at 1.7 GHz. Self-inductance of 1.4 and 4.8 nH, and quality factor of 7.6 and 6.8, were obtained for primary and secondary windings, respectively. Results of the measurement of the transformer show high agreement with the proposed model and verify the accuracy of the physical behavior of the model within the frequency of interest.
An Estimate of the Effect of Common Currencies on Trade and Income

Gravity-based cross-sectional evidence indicates that currency unions and currency boards stimulate trade; cross-sectional evidence indicates that trade stimulates income. This paper estimates the effect that common-currency regimes have, via trade, on income per capita. We use economic and geographic data for over 200 countries to quantify the implications of common currencies for trade and income, pursuing a two-stage approach. Our estimates at the first stage suggest that belonging to a currency union more than triples trade with the other members of the zone. Moreover, there is no evidence of trade-diversion. Thus currency unions raise overall trade. Currency boards have similar effects. Our estimates at the second stage suggest that every one percent increase in trade (relative to GDP) raises income per capita by at least one third of a percent over twenty years. We combine the two estimates to quantify the effect of common currencies on output. Our results support the hypothesis that the beneficial effects of such regimes on economic performance come through the promotion of trade, rather than through a commitment to non-inflationary monetary policy, or other macroeconomic influences.
Duplicate Gene Revolution , Homoeologous Recombination , and Transcriptome Characterization in Allopolyploid Cotton

Background: Modern allotetraploid cotton contains an “A” and “D” genome from an ancestral polyploidy event that occurred approximately 1–2 million years ago. Diploid Aand D-genome species can be compared to the Aand D-genomes found within these allotetraploids to make evolutionary inferences about polyploidy. In this paper we present a comprehensive EST assembly derived from diploid and model allotetraploid cottons and demonstrate several evolutionary inferences regarding genic evolution that can be drawn from these data. Results: We generated a set of cotton expressed sequence tags (ESTs), comprising approximately 4.4 million Sanger and next-generation (454) transcripts supplemented by approximately 152 million Illumina reads from diploid and allotetraploid cottons. From the EST alignments we inferred 259,192 genome-specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Molecular evolutionary analyses of protein-coding regions demonstrate that the rate of nucleotide substitution has increased among both allotetraploid genomes relative to the diploids, and that the ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions has increased in one of the two polyploid lineages we sampled. We also use these SNPs to show that a surprisingly high percentage of duplicate genes (~7 %) show a signature of non-independent evolution in the allotetraploid nucleus, having experienced one or more episodes of nonreciprocal homoeologous recombination (NRHR). Conclusions: In this study we characterize the functional and mutational properties of the cotton transcriptome, produce a large genome-specific SNP database, and detect illegitimate genetic exchanges between duplicate genomes sharing a common allotetraploid nucleus. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of the consequences of polyploidy and duplicate gene evolution. We demonstrate that cotton genes have experienced an increased rate of molecular evolution following duplication by polyploidy, and that polyploidy has enabled considerable levels of nonreciprocal exchange between homoeologous genes.
Light and Electron Microscopy of Excoriated Psoriatic Lesions in Patients During Topical Treatment

This is a light‐ and electron‐microscopic study of excoriated, recalcitrant psoriatic lesions in ambulatory patients undergoing topical treatment. During regeneration of a stratum corneum without scales, in areas showing excoriations bounded by a non‐cornified epidermis, horny cell layers, designated I and II, are formed. In areas in which excoriations are delimited by an epidermis with a retained stratum corneum, the latter is composed of a horny cell layer I and/or II or III. The horny cell layers differ, as shown by light‐and electron‐microscopy. In the less fresh excoriations, a homogeneous substance, which includes fibrin deposits, is observed. This substance is also seen frequently in the stratum corneum. In the less fresh excoriations and in the stratum corneum there are numerous polymorphonuclear leukocytes. In these locations, however, they are only found simultaneously with the homogeneous substance containing fibrin deposits. Polymorphonuclear leukocytes are also seen in the dermal papillae and in the non‐cornified epidermis, particularly in the macroscopically “old” excoriations. The changes observed in these recalcitrant lesions have been interpreted as secondary and are believed to be expressions of a non‐specific reaction to the mechanical damage to which the ambulatory patients have constantly exposed the lesions. They are not interpreted as changes in the psoriatic condition per se.
Prevalence of Head Injury among Four-Year College Students: A Replication and Combined Results

In a replication of an earlier study, college students were surveyed to assess the prevalence of diagnosed head injury or prolonged periods of unconsciousness. Results were consistent with previous research and indicated a significant number of college students report a head injury or a prolonged period of unconsciousness. The major results of the two studies are reported as combined data.
Narrow passage path planning using fast marching method and support vector machine

This paper introduces a novel path planning method under non-holonomic constraint for car-like vehicles, which associates map discovery and heuristic search to attain an optimal resultant path. The map discovery applies fast marching method to investigate the map geometric information. After that, the support vector machine is performed to find obstacle clearance information. This information is then used as a heuristic function which helps greatly reduce the search space. The fast marching is performed again, guided by this function to generate vehicle motions under kinematic constraints. Experimental results have shown that this method is able to generate motions for non-holonomic vehicles. In comparison with related methods, the path generated by proposed method is smoother and stay farther away from the obstacles.
Visual Search Strategies and Decision Making in Baseball Batting

The goal was to examine the differences in visual search strategies between expert and nonexpert baseball batters during the preparatory phase of a pitcher's pitching and accuracy and timing of swing judgments during the ball's trajectory. 14 members of a college team (Expert group), and graduate and college students (Nonexpert group), were asked to observe 10 pitches thrown by a pitcher and respond by pushing a button attached to a bat when they thought the bat should be swung to meet the ball (swing judgment). Their eye movements, accuracy, and the timing of the swing judgment were measured. The Expert group shifted their point of observation from the proximal part of the body such as the head, chest, or trunk of the pitcher to the pitching arm and the release point before the pitcher released a ball, while the gaze point of the Nonexpert group visually focused on the head and the face. The accuracy in swing judgments of the Expert group was significantly higher, and the timing of their swing judgments was significantly earlier. Expert baseball batters used visual search strategies to gaze at specific cues (the pitching arm of the pitcher) and were more accurate and relatively quicker at decision making than Nonexpert batters.
Open peering by Internet transit providers: Peer preference or peer pressure?

Peering agreements between Autonomous Systems affect not only the flow of interdomain traffic but also the economics of the entire Internet ecosystem. The conventional wisdom is that transit providers are selective in choosing their settlement-free peers because they prefer to offer revenue-generating transit service to others. Surprisingly, however, a large percentage of transit providers use an Open peering strategy. What causes this large-scale adoption of Open peering, especially among transit providers? More importantly, what is the impact of this peering trend on the economic performance of the population of transit providers? We approach these questions through game-theoretic modeling and agent-based simulations, capturing the dynamics of peering strategy adoption, inter-network formation and interdomain traffic flow. We explain why transit providers gravitate towards Open peering even though that move may be detrimental to their economic fitness. Finally, we examine the impact of an Open peering variant that requires some coordination among providers.
Androgen receptor gene polymorphisms are associated with aggression in Japanese Akita Inu

We tested for an association between variable number of tandem repeats in the canine androgen receptor (AR) gene and personality differences in Japanese Akita Inu dogs. The polymorphic trinucleotide (CAG) repeat region coding for glutamine in exon 1 of the AR gene was genotyped using genomic DNA obtained from 171 dogs. Three alleles (23, 24 and 26 repeats) were detected, and the allele frequency differed with the coat colour. We assessed the personality profiles of 100 fawn-coloured dogs (54 males and 46 females) based on a questionnaire answered by each dog's owner. The questionnaire consisted of five sub-scales (sociability, playfulness, neuroticism, aggressiveness, distractibility), and the psychometric properties were acceptable based upon internal consistency of the subscales. We found that male dogs with a short allele conferring increased AR function had higher aggressiveness scores than male dogs with longer alleles. By contrast, no evidence was found for a relationship between AR gene variants and personality in females. To our knowledge, our findings provide the first evidence of polymorphism in the AR gene being associated with canine aggression.