Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Maximum-A-Posteriori Framework for Statistical Appearance Models with Probabilistic Correspondences

The identification of one-to-one correspondences in a training set is a key aspect of building statistical models. But the determination of these corresponding landmarks is the most challenging part of such methods. Hufnagel et al. [1] developed an alternative method using correspondence probabilities for statistical shape models. We propose the use of probabilistic correspondences for statistical appearance models by incorporating appearance information into the framework. A sparse representation is generated representing image structures by a set of vectors assembling positions and appearances. Using probabilistic correspondences between these multi-dimensional feature vectors eliminates the need for extensive preprocessing to find corresponding landmarks and reduces the dependence of the generated model on the landmark positions. Then, a maximum-a-posteriori approach is used to derive a single global optimization criterion with respect to model parameters and observation dependent parameters that affects shape and appearance information of the considered structures. Model generation and fitting can be expressed by optimizing the same criterion. This framework describes the modeling process in a concise and flexible mathematical framework and allows for additional constraints as topological regularity in the modeling process. In a first evaluation we apply the model to hand X-ray images demonstrating the feasibility of the model to reconstruct contours and landmarks for unseen images. Furthermore, we compare our model to a classical Active Shape Model and an Active Appearance Model.
Monitoring the therapeutic response of locally advanced breast cancer patients: Sequential in vivo proton MR spectroscopy study

To evaluate the use of the water‐to‐fat (W‐F) value obtained from in vivo proton (1H) MR spectroscopy (MRS) as a response indicator of cytologically confirmed patients with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC), and to monitor the therapeutic response of such patients to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT)
Prospective Evaluation of Hemostatic System Activation and Thrombin Potential in Healthy Pregnant Women with and without Factor V Leiden

Summary Normal pregnancy is associated with alterations of the hemostatic system towards a hypercoagulable state and an increased risk of venous thromboembolism. The risk of venous thrombosis is higher in pregnant women with factor V Leiden (FVL) than in those with wildtype factor V. Routine laboratory assays are not useful to detect hypercoagulable conditions. A prospective and systematic evaluation of hemostatic system activation in women with and without FVL during an uncomplicated pregnancy employing more sensitive markers of hypercoagulability, such as prothrombin fragment 1+2 (F1+2), thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT), D-Dimer, or the endogenous thrombin potential (ETP), an indicator of the plasma’s potential to generate thrombin, has not been performed. We prospectively followed 113 pregnant women with (n = 11) and without (n = 102) FVL and measured F1+2, TAT, D-Dimer and the ETP at the 12th, 22nd and 34th gestational week as well as 3 months after delivery (baseline) in each subject. None of the women developed clinical signs of venous thromboembolism during pregnancy or postpartum. Pregnant women with and without FVL exhibited substantial activation of the coagulation and fibrinolytic system as indicated by a gradual increase of F1+2, TAT and D-Dimer throughout uncomplicated pregnancy up to levels similar to those found in acute thromboembolic events (p < 0.0001 by analysis of variance for each parameters). Levels of F1+2 and TAT were comparable between women with and without FVL, but levels of D-Dimer were significantly higher in women with FVL than in those without the mutation (p = 0.0005). The ETP remained unchanged in both women with and without FVL at all timepoints. Our data demonstrate a substantial coagulation and fibrinolytic system activation in healthy women with and without FVL during uncomplicated pregnancy. An elevated F1+2, TAT or D-Dimer level during pregnancy is not necessarily indicative for an acute thromboembolic event. The normal ETP in both women with and without FVL suggests that the capacity of the plasma to generate thrombin after in vitro activation of the clotting system is not affected by pregnancy. Higher levels of D-Dimer in women with FVL than in women with wildtype factor V at baseline as well as during pregnancy indicate increased fibrinolytic system activation in carriers of the mutation.
Intracarpal Soft-Tissue Lesions Associated with an Intra-Articular Fracture of the Distal End of the Radius*

Sixty patients who had a displaced intra-articular fracture of the distal end of the radius were managed with manipulative reduction and internal fixation performed under both fluoroscopic and arthroscopic guidance. According to the AO/ASIF classification system, seven fractures were type B1, two were type B2, three were type B3, thirteen were type C1, twelve were type C2, and twenty-three were type C3. Forty-one patients (68 per cent) had soft-tissue injuries of the wrist, including tears of the triangular fibrocartilage complex (twenty-six patients), the scapholunate interosseous ligament (nineteen), and the lunotriquetral interosseous ligament (nine). Thirteen patients had two soft-tissue injuries. Intracarpal soft-tissue injuries were identified most frequently in association with fractures involving the lunate facet of the distal articular surface or the radius.
Laparoscopic splenectomy: outcome and efficacy in 103 consecutive patients.

OBJECTIVE To study the safety and efficacy of laparoscopic splenectomy (LS) in patients with predominantly benign hematologic disorders. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA The technical feasibility of LS has been recently established. However, data regarding the efficacy of the procedure in a large cohort of patients are scarce. METHODS One hundred three consecutive patients underwent LS between June 1992 and October 1997. Data were collected prospectively on all patients. RESULTS Indications were idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), hereditary spherocytosis, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, and others. Mean spleen size was 14 cm and mean weight was 263 g. Accessory spleens were found in 12 patients with ITP and in 5 patients without ITP. There were no deaths. Complications occurred in six patients, one requiring a second procedure for small bowel obstruction. Six patients received transfusions, and four procedures were converted to open splenectomy for bleeding. Mean surgical time was 161 minutes and was greater in the first 10 cases than the last 10. Mean postsurgical stay was 2.5 days. Thrombocytopenia resolved after surgery in 84% of patients with ITP, and hematocrit levels increased significantly in 70% of patients with chronic hemolytic anemias. A positive response was noted in 92% of patients with hereditary spherocytosis, without relapse for the duration of the observation. ITP relapsed in four patients during follow-up, three within 12 months. CONCLUSIONS LS can be performed safely and effectively in a teaching institution. Rigorous technique will minimize capsular fractures, reducing the risk of splenosis. Accessory spleens can be successfully localized, thus improving response and limiting recurrence of ITP. LS should become the technique of choice for treatment of intractable benign hematologic disease.
Multi-instance learning with any hypothesis class

In the supervised learning setting termed Multiple-Instance Learning (MIL), the examples are bags of instances, and the bag label is a function of the labels of its instances. Typically, this function is the Boolean OR. The learner observes a sample of bags and the bag labels, but not the instance labels that determine the bag labels. The learner is then required to emit a classification rule for bags based on the sample. MIL has numerous applications, and many heuristic algorithms have been used successfully on this problem, each adapted to specific settings or applications. In this work we provide a unified theoretical analysis for MIL, which holds for any underlying hypothesis class, regardless of a specific application or problem domain. We show that the sample complexity of MIL is only poly-logarithmically dependent on the size of the bag, for any underlying hypothesis class. In addition, we introduce a new PAC-learning algorithm for MIL, which uses a regular supervised learning algorithm as an oracle. We prove that efficient PAC-learning for MIL can be generated from any efficient non-MIL supervised learning algorithm that handles one-sided error. The computational complexity of the resulting algorithm is only polynomially dependent on the bag size.
Regression of papillomas induced by cottontail rabbit papillomavirus is associated with infiltration of CD8+ cells and persistence of viral DNA after regression

Cottontail rabbit papillomavirus (CRPV) is a highly oncogenic papillomavirus and has been successfully used as a model to develop protective vaccines against papillomaviruses. Papillomas induced by the virus may spontaneously regress, suggesting that CRPV can also serve as a model to develop therapeutic vaccines. As a first step toward this goal, we have analyzed immunologic and viral aspects associated with papilloma regression and have identified several features unique to regression. Immunohistochemical staining of biopsies from growing and regressing papillomas and from sites after complete regression showed infiltration of CD8+ cells into the basal and suprabasal layers of the epidermis only during active regression. In situ hybridizations with mRNA-specific probes were strongly positive for E6 and E7 mRNAs during regression, but no late mRNA was present. Viral DNA was detected by in situ hybridization during regression but not after regression. However, analysis by PCR revealed persistence of viral DNA for several months at the majority of regression sites. The results suggest that stimulation of a strong CD8+ response to virus-infected cells is important for an effective therapeutic vaccine and that special attention should be given to the suppression of latent infection.
RFID Ownership Transfer with Positive Secrecy Capacity Channels

RFID ownership transfer protocols (OTPs) transfer tag ownership rights. Recently, there has been considerable interest in such protocols; however, guaranteeing privacy for symmetric-key settings without trusted third parties (TTPs) is a challenge still unresolved. In this paper, we address this issue and show that it can be solved by using channels with positive secrecy capacity. We implement these channels with noisy tags and provide practical values, thus proving that perfect secrecy is theoretically possible. We then define a communication model that captures spatiotemporal events and describe a first example of symmetric-key based OTP that: (i) is formally secure in the proposed communication model and (ii) achieves privacy with a noisy tag wiretap channel without TTPs.
Effects of thyroid autoimmunity on abdominal obesity and hyperlipidaemia.

BACKGROUND Thyroid autoimmunity has been suggested as a risk factor for atherosclerosis independent of thyroid function in several studies. The aim of this study was to investigate whether thyroid autoimmunity had any effect on hyperlipidaemia, obesity and abdominal obesity independent of thyroid function. MATERIAL AND METHODS 184 premenopausal female patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) and 150 healthy premenopausal female volunteers as control group (CG) were included in the study. According to thyroid function status, the patients were divided into three subgroups: overt hypothyroid patients (ohp), subclinical hypothyroid patients (shp) and euthyroid patients (ep). Body mass index (BMI), waist to hip ratios, waist circumference (WC), and serum lipid levels of all the participants were determined. These parameters of ep were compared with those of ohp, shp and CG. Relationships among thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), thyroid autoantibodies and lipid levels were investigated. RESULTS There were no significant differences between serum total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels of ohp and ep with HT (P = 0.18, P = 0.07 respectively) and LDL-C levels of ep were higher than those of CG (P = 0.03, P = 0.042, respectively). Although TSH levels did not correlate with serum lipid levels, levels of anti-thyroid peroxidase antibody correlated with triglyceride levels and WCs (r = 0.158; P = 0.013, r = 0.128; P = 0.048 respectively) and negatively correlated with high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels (r = -0.137; P = 0.031). Levels of anti-thyroglobulin antibody also correlated with triglyceride and nonHDL-C levels (r = 0.208; P = 0.007, r = 0.158; P = 0.043 respectively). CONCLUSION Thyroid autoimmunity may have some effects on hyperlipidaemia and abdominal obesity independent of thyroid function.
Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature

Originally published in 1984, Reading the Romance challenges popular (and often demeaning) myths about why romantic fiction, one of publishing's most lucrative categories, captivates millions of women readers. Among those who have disparaged romance reading are feminists, literary critics, and theorists of mass culture. They claim that romances enforce the woman reader's dependence on men and acceptance of the repressive ideology purveyed by popular culture. Radway questions such claims, arguing that critical attention "must shift from the text itself, taken in isolation, to the complex social event of reading. " She examines that event, from the complicated business of publishing and distribution to the individual reader's engagement with the text. Radway's provocative approach combines reader-response criticism with anthropology and feminist psychology. Asking readers themselves to explore their reading motives, habits, and rewards, she conducted interviews in a midwestern town with forty-two romance readers whom she met through Dorothy Evans, a chain bookstore employee who has earned a reputation as an expert on romantic fiction. Evans defends her customers' choice of entertainment; reading romances, she tells Radway, is no more harmful than watching sports on television. "We read books so we won't cry" is the poignant explanation one woman offers for her reading habit. Indeed, Radway found that while the women she studied devote themselves to nurturing their families, these wives and mothers receive insufficient devotion or nurturance in return. In romances the women find not only escape from the demanding and often tiresome routines of their lives but also a hero who supplies the tenderness and admiring attention that they have learned not to expect. The heroines admired by Radway's group defy the expected stereotypes; they are strong, independent, and intelligent. That such characters often find themselves to be victims of male aggression and almost always resign themselves to accepting conventional roles in life has less to do, Radway argues, with the women readers' fantasies and choices than with their need to deal with a fear of masculine dominance. These romance readers resent not only the limited choices in their own lives but the patronizing atitude that men especially express toward their reading tastes. In fact, women read romances both to protest and to escape temporarily the narrowly defined role prescribed for them by a patriarchal culture. Paradoxically, the books that they read make conventional roles for women seem desirable. It is this complex relationship between culture, text, and woman reader that Radway urges feminists to address. Romance readers, she argues, should be encouraged to deliver their protests in the arena of actual social relations rather than to act them out in the solitude of the imagination. In a new introduction, Janice Radway places the book within the context of current scholarship and offers both an explanation and critique of the study's limitations.
Physiopathology and Management of Coagulation during Long-term Extracorporeal Respiratory Assistance

Thrombohemorrhagic risk is one of the main limiting factors in extracorporeal circulation. We describe here our experience in managing some life-threatening hematological complications in 58 patients with acute respiratory failure treated with long-term extracorporeal assistance. These patients were studied by clinical and laboratory means to assess questions related to heparin monitoring, coagulation complications and bleeding incidence. We found that two clotting tests, activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) and activated clotting time (ACT) can be easily used to assess the safety of anticoagulant treatment (therapeutic ranges: APTT from 55 to 95 sec and ACT from 170 to 220 sec). A certain degree of coagulation activation, despite heparin, was indicated by the constant finding of thrombin-antithrombin complexes, while fibrinolytic activation, measured as plasminogen activator activity, was confined to the time of bypass connection and was of no clinical consequence. Platelet function was always impaired without relation to the platelet loss. Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) (13 episodes) and severe bleeding (11 episodes) were major complications. DIC was corrected with a good outcome for 8 of 13 patients, while severe bleeding was correlated with a poor outcome in 8 of the 11 patients, probably because of the severity of the underlying disease.
Next generation of non-mammalian blood-brain barrier models to study parasitic infections of the central nervous system

Transmigration of neuropathogens across the blood-brain barrier is a key step in the development of central nervous system infections, making it a prime target for drug development. The ability of neuropathogens to traverse the blood-brain barrier continues to inspire researchers to understand the specific strategies and molecular mechanisms that allow them to enter the brain. The availability of models of the blood-brain barrier that closely mimic the situation in vivo offers unprecedented opportunities for the development of novel therapeutics.
MYC/BCL2 Double-Hit High-Grade B-Cell Lymphoma

Double-hit lymphoma (DHL) has been defined by others as a B-cell lymphoma with MYC/8q24 rearrangement in combination with a translocation involving another gene, such as BCL2, BCL3, or BCL6. The most common form of DHL has translocations involving MYC and BCL2, also known as MYC/BCL2 DHL. In recent years, a number of case series of MYC/BCL2 DHL have been published. Most cases of MYC/BCL2 DHL morphologically resemble diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) or B-cell lymphoma, unclassifiable, with features intermediate between DLBCL and Burkitt lymphoma. These tumors are of B-cell lineage, have a germinal center B-cell immunophenotype with a high proliferation rate, and a complex karyotype. Patients with these tumors have an aggressive clinical course and poor prognosis despite high-intensity chemotherapy. More recently, studies have suggested expanding the spectrum of MYC/BCL2 DHL to include cases that have concurrent MYC and BCL2 cytogenetic abnormalities, but not necessarily translocations. In addition, overexpression of MYC and BCL2 has been shown in an appreciable subset of DLBCL tumors. These tumors show overlap with MYC/BCL2 DHL, but are not equivalent. In this review, we discuss the clinicopathologic, immunophenotypic, cytogenetic, and prognostic features of MYC/BCL2 DHL.
Assessing the applicability of a corporate governance index in Maltese listed entities

This paper sets out to establish to what extent, if any, a corporate governance index (CGI) is suitable and applicable to Maltese listed entities (MLEs). Two sets of semi-structured interviews were held with seven financial analysts and 13 MLEs. This was followed by a CGI survey sent to the same MLEs previously interviewed and an analysis of their Annual Reports for the three-year period 2011-2013. A CGI model purposely designed for the present study was then tested on two MLEs. Findings show that corporate governance in Malta is not given appropriate importance by MLEs. Yet respondents agreed to CGI introduction in order to improve current CG practices. The study goes on to assess the impact, benefits and limitations of such a CGI in Malta and provides feasible recommendations which may help towards the consolidation of corporate governance in MLEs.
Environmental Workplace Behaviors

In response to recent calls for more micro-foundation research in corporate social responsibility, this article approaches environmental sustainability from an organizational behavior/human resource perspective. Specifically, this article refines the concept of the environmental workplace behaviors (EWBs), defined here as “work behaviors directed toward the protection or improvement of the natural environment, which may or may not generate value for the organization; these behaviors may be performed by employees situated at any organizational level. ” EWBs include organization citizenship behaviors for the environment (OCBEs), environmental in-role behaviors (EIRBs), and environmental counterproductive workplace behaviors (ECWBs). Furthermore, the article distinguishes between low-intensity and high-intensity EWBs and discusses the importance of constructs such as trust and power for green employee engagement in EWBs. The article concludes with recommendations for future research and practice in the area of environmental behaviors in organizations.
Readability and Thematic Manipulation in Corporate Communications: A Multi-Disclosure and Trans-Tasman Investigation

The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of two significant impression management strategies, thematic and reading ease manipulation, across a range of distinct corporate communications and explore the determinants of such practices. While previous studies have examined thematic and reading ease manipulation, these have viewed such impression management techniques in isolation. This research is the first to simultaneously examine the prevalence of these impression management strategies across such a range of corporate communications. In particular, no previous studies have looked at the thematic and reading ease manipulation of standalone CSR reports or compared the various sections/disclosures included within the same annual report. Of significance are the inclusion of several additional themes, namely Activity; Optimism; Certainty; Realism and Commonality, advancing the scope of thematic manipulation research from the limited positive and negative themes. It is important to examine a range of correspondence because no one form of correspondence is the same. Financial notes are heavily regulated and audited and thus should be less susceptible to manipulation. CSR disclosures have little to no regulation or audit process and as such are very susceptible to manipulation. Likewise, the two distinct reports service different audiences, who can be expected to have different expertise. This research discovers what firm characteristics are determinates of the readability and thematic content in particular specific disclosure types, industries and country of listing. Financial performance tests reveal that there is evidence of manipulation of readability to obfuscate the disclosures of poor performing companies while the themes of these poorly performing company’s disclosures closely mirror those that are performing well. In addition to the traditional performance based tests, a novel new test that combines the traditional thematic positivity variable and readability shows that positive disclosures are significantly more readable than negative ones, strengthening the obfuscation hypothesis. This research also motivates the need of a purpose built reading ease formula based on corporate disclosures that outputs a result that allows the comparison of disclosures. Indeed a very basic example of such a formula is developed as a starting point for additional research.