Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Global Cancer in Women: Burden and Trends

This review is an abbreviated version of a report prepared for the American Cancer Society Global Health department and EMD Serono, Inc., a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, which was released at the Union for International Cancer Control World Cancer Congress in Paris in November 2016. The original report can be found at https://www.cancer. org/health-care-professionals/our-global-health-work/global-cancer-burden/global-burden-of-cancer-in-women.html. Staff in the Intramural Research Department of the American Cancer Society designed and conducted the study, including analysis, interpretation, and presentation of the review. The funding sources had no involvement in the study design, data analysis and interpretation, or preparation of the review. There are striking disparities in the global cancer burden in women, yet few publications highlight cancer occurrence in this population, particularly for cancers that are not sex specific. This article, the first in a series of two, summarizes the current burden, trends, risk factors, prevention, early detection, and survivorship of all cancers combined and seven sites (breast, cervix, uterine corpus, ovary, colorectum, lung, and liver) that account for about 60% of the cancer burden among women worldwide, using data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Estimated 2012 overall cancer death rates in general are higher among women in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) than high-income countries (HICs), despite their lower overall incidence rates, largely due to inadequate access to early detection and treatment. For example, the top mortality rates are in Zimbabwe (147 deaths per 100,000) and Malawi (138). Furthermore, incidence rates of cancers associated with economic development (e.g., lung, breast, colorectum) are rising in several LMICs. The burden of cancer among women could be substantially reduced in both HICs and LMICs through broad and equitable implementation of effective interventions, including tobacco control, HPV and HBV vaccination, and screening (breast, cervix, and colorectum). Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(4); 444–57. ©2017 AACR. See related article by Islami et al. in this CEBP Focus section, “Global Cancer in Women. ”
Regulatory T cells constrain the TCR repertoire of antigen‐stimulated conventional CD4 T cells

To analyze the potential role of Tregs in controlling the TCR repertoire breadth to a non‐self‐antigen, a TCRβ transgenic mouse model (EF4.1) expressing a limited, yet polyclonal naïve T‐cell repertoire was used. The response of EF4.1 mice to an I‐Ab‐associated epitope of the F‐MuLV envelope protein is dominated by clones expressing a Vα2 gene segment, thus allowing a comprehensive analysis of the TCRα repertoire in a relatively large cohort of mice. Control and Treg‐depleted EF4.1 mice were immunized, and the extent of the Vα2‐bearing, antigen‐specific TCR repertoire was characterized by high‐throughput sequencing and spectratyping analysis. In addition to increased clonal expansion and acquisition of effector functions, Treg depletion led to the expression of a more diverse TCR repertoire comprising several private clonotypes rarely observed in control mice or in the pre‐immune repertoire. Injection of anti‐CD86 antibodies in vivo led to a strong reduction in TCR diversity, suggesting that Tregs may influence TCR repertoire diversity by modulating costimulatory molecule availability. Collectively, these studies illustrate an additional mechanism whereby Tregs control the immune response to non‐self‐antigens.
Prospective, Head-to-Head Study of Three Computerized Neurocognitive Assessment Tools Part 2: Utility for Assessment of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Emergency Department Patients

Abstract Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of three computerized neurocognitive assessment tools (CNTs; i.e., ANAM, DANA, and ImPACT) for assessing mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) in patients recruited through a level I trauma center emergency department (ED). Methods: mTBI (n=94) and matched trauma control (n=80) subjects recruited from a level I trauma center emergency department completed symptom and neurocognitive assessments within 72 hr of injury and at 15 and 45 days post-injury. Concussion symptoms were also assessed via phone at 8 days post-injury. Results: CNTs did not differentiate between groups at any time point (e.g., M 72-hr Cohen’s d=−.16, .02, and .00 for ANAM, DANA, and ImPACT, respectively; negative values reflect greater impairment in the mTBI group). Roughly a quarter of stability coefficients were over . 70 across measures and test–retest intervals in controls. In contrast, concussion symptom score differentiated mTBI vs. control groups acutely), with this effect size diminished over time (72-hr and day 8, 15, and 45 Cohen’s d=−.78, −.60, −.49, and −.35, respectively). Conclusions: The CNTs evaluated, developed and widely used to assess sport-related concussion, did not yield significant differences between patients with mTBI versus other injuries. Symptom scores better differentiated groups than CNTs, with effect sizes weaker than those reported in sport-related concussion studies. Nonspecific injury factors, and other characteristics common in ED settings, likely affect CNT performance across trauma patients as a whole and thereby diminish the validity of CNTs for assessing mTBI in this patient population. (JINS, 2017, 23, 293–303)
Ultra-Dense Networks in 5G: Interference Management via Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access and Treating Interference as Noise

We propose a method for interference mitigation in an ultra-dense wireless network scenario in 5G, where a group of transmit points (TPs) intend to serve multiple user equipments (UEs) using the same wireless resource. The proposed UE scheduling subroutine may schedule a single UE or multiple UEs for each TP, where multiple UEs can be served via non-orthogonal multiple-access (NOMA). Afterwards, the link scheduling subroutine utilizes an extended form of the optimality conditions for treating interference as noise in single-user networks for the case where NOMA is also involved. This subroutine determines an activation/deactivation pattern of TPs while maintaining fairness among competing users and minimizing the level of interference among concurrent transmissions. We show that our proposed interference management scheme can improve over the benchmark schemes both in terms of sum-throughput and coverage, striking the right trade-off between these two performance metrics.
Visual feature binding in younger and older adults: encoding and suffix interference effects

ABSTRACT Three experiments investigated younger (18–25 yrs) and older (70–88 yrs) adults’ temporary memory for colour–shape combinations (binding). We focused upon estimating the magnitude of the binding cost for each age group across encoding time (Experiment 1; 900/1500 ms), presentation format (Experiment 2; simultaneous/sequential), and interference (Experiment 3; control/suffix) conditions. In Experiment 1, encoding time did not differentially influence binding in the two age groups. In Experiment 2, younger adults exhibited poorer binding performance with sequential relative to simultaneous presentation, and serial position analyses highlighted a particular age-related difficulty remembering the middle item of a series (for all memory conditions). Experiments 1–3 demonstrated small to medium binding effect sizes in older adults across all encoding conditions, with binding less accurate than shape memory. However, younger adults also displayed negative effects of binding (small to large) in two of the experiments. Even when older adults exhibited a greater suffix interference effect in Experiment 3, this was for all memory types, not just binding. We therefore conclude that there is no consistent evidence for a visual binding deficit in healthy older adults. This relative preservation contrasts with the specific and substantial deficits in visual feature binding found in several recent studies of Alzheimer's disease.
Early and long period follow-up results of low glycemic index diet for migraine prophylaxis.

OBJECTIVES The role of dietary restriction in the management of patients with migraine is still a controversial topic in the headache field. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of dietary restriction on migraine attacks. METHODS Patients diagnosed with migraine without aura according to the International Classification of Headaches were enrolled. Our study included 350 migraine patients evaluated at the neurology headache outpatient clinic. They were randomly divided into two groups: diet group as the study group and medication group as the control group. We told migraine patients to make lifestyle changes, especially those with low glycemic index in the diet group. On the other hand, propranolol, amitriptyline, flunarizine, and topiramate were used for the prophylaxis in the medication group. The frequency and severity of attacks [using the visual analog scale (VAS)] were recorded before starting dietary restriction and 1 and 3 months after the dietary restriction. RESULTS There were 350 participants in this study. After 3 months, a total of 147 patients (male/female: 17/130, mean age: 34.7±5.9) were evaluated in the diet group. The control group consisted of 147 age- and sex-matched, randomly selected patients with migraine without aura. In the first month after dietary restriction, monthly attack frequency significantly decreased in both groups but not the VAS score. The mean scores of VAS significantly decreased later in the diet group compared with those in the medication group (after 3 months). CONCLUSION The results of the study revealed that low glycemic index diet intake can be an effective and reliable method to reduce migraine attacks.
The influence of social network size on speech perception

Infants and adults learn new phonological varieties better when exposed to multiple rather than a single speaker. This article tests whether having a larger social network similarly facilitates phonological performance. Experiment 1 shows that people with larger social networks are better at vowel perception in noise, indicating that the benefit of laboratory exposure to multiple speakers extends to real life experience and to adults tested in their native language. Furthermore, the experiment shows that this association is not due to differences in amount of input or to cognitive differences between people with different social network sizes. Follow-up computational simulations reveal that the benefit of larger social networks is mostly due to increased input variability. Additionally, the simulations show that the boost that larger social networks provide is independent of the amount of input received but is larger if the population is more heterogeneous. Finally, a comparison of “adult” and “child” simulations reconciles previous conflicting findings by suggesting that input variability along the relevant dimension might be less useful at the earliest stages of learning. Together, this article shows when and how the size of our social network influences our speech perception. It thus shows how aspects of our lifestyle can influence our linguistic performance.
Back-Projection Cortical Potential Imaging: Theory and Results

Electroencephalography (EEG) is the single brain monitoring technique that is non-invasive, portable, passive, exhibits high-temporal resolution, and gives a directmeasurement of the scalp electrical potential. Amajor disadvantage of the EEG is its low-spatial resolution, which is the result of the low-conductive skull that “smears” the currents coming from within the brain. Recording brain activity with both high temporal and spatial resolution is crucial for the localization of confined brain activations and the study of brainmechanismfunctionality, whichis then followed by diagnosis of brain-related diseases. In this paper, a new cortical potential imaging (CPI) method is presented. The new method gives an estimation of the electrical activity on the cortex surface and thus removes the “smearing effect” caused by the skull. The scalp potentials are back-projected CPI (BP-CPI) onto the cortex surface by building a well-posed problem to the Laplace equation that is solved by means of the finite elements method on a realistic head model. A unique solution to the CPI problem is obtained by introducing a cortical normal current estimation technique. The technique is based on the same mechanism used in the well-known surface Laplacian calculation, followed by a scalp-cortex back-projection routine. The BP-CPI passed four stages of validation, including validation on spherical and realistic head models, probabilistic analysis (Monte Carlo simulation), and noise sensitivity tests. In addition, the BP-CPI was compared with the minimum norm estimate CPI approach and found superior for multi-source cortical potential distributions with very good estimation results (CC >0.97) on a realistic head model in the regions of interest, for two representative cases. The BP-CPI can be easily incorporated in different monitoring tools and help researchers by maintaining an accurate estimation for the cortical potential of ongoing or event-related potentials in order to have better neurological inferences from the EEG.
Rapid Synthesis of MgB2 by Inductive Heating

The effect of a rapid internal magnesium diffusion synthesis on the electrical, magnetic, and microstructural properties of binary MgB2 bulk samples has been investigated. We have used a laboratory-made induction furnace to reduce the reaction time, typically of many hours, to few minutes. We report a comparison between two samples reacted at the same temperature with the induction furnace and with a commercial resistance oven. We have observed that the critical temperature and the width of the superconducting transition are not affected by the heat treatment. The induction heating leads to an increase of the critical current density at high fields, correlated with an enhancement of the upper critical field. This paper exposes the potentiality of the proposed fast process, which allows tuning the parameters of the heat treatment in ranges that would not be accessible with traditional ovens. The technique can be scaled for the preparation of wires and powders.
Investigating elastic cloud based RDF processing

The Semantic Web was proposed as an extension of the traditional Web to give Web data context and meaning by using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) data model. The recent growth in the adoption of RDF in addition to the massive growth of RDF data, have led numerous efforts to focus on the challenges of processing this data. To this extent, many approaches have focused on vertical scalability by utilising powerful hardware, or horizontal scalability utilising always-on physical computer clusters or peer to peer networks. However, these approaches utilise fixed and high specification computer clusters that require considerable upfront and ongoing investments to deal with the data growth. In recent years cloud computing has seen wide adoption due to its unique elasticity and utility billing features. This thesis addresses some of the issues related to the processing of large RDF datasets by utilising cloud computing. Initially, the thesis reviews the background literature of related distributed RDF processing work and issues, in particular distributed rulebased reasoning and dictionary encoding, followed by a review of the cloud computing paradigm and related literature. Then, in order to fully utilise features that are specific to cloud computing such as elasticity, the thesis designs and fully implements a Cloud-based Task Execution framework (CloudEx), a generic framework for efficiently distributing and executing tasks on cloud environments. Subsequently, some of the large-scale RDF processing issues are addressed by using the CloudEx framework to develop algorithms for processing RDF using cloud computing. These algorithms perform efficient dictionary encoding and forward reasoning using cloud-based columnar databases. The algorithms are collectively implemented as an Elastic Cost Aware Reasoning Framework (ECARF), a cloud-based RDF triple store. This thesis presents original results and findings that advance the state of the art of performing distributed cloud-based RDF processing and forward reasoning.
Low-frequency cortical oscillations are modulated by temporal prediction and temporal error coding

Monitoring and updating temporal predictions are critical abilities for adaptive behavior. Here, we investigated whether neural oscillations are related to violation and updating of temporal predictions. Human participants performed an experiment in which they had to generate a target at an expected time point, by pressing a button while taking into account a variable delay between the act and the stimulus occurrence. Our behavioral results showed that participants quickly adapted their temporal predictions in face of an error. Concurrent electrophysiological (EEG) data showed that temporal errors elicited markers that are classically related to error coding. Furthermore, intertrial phase coherence of frontal theta oscillations was modulated by error magnitude, possibly indexing the degree of surprise. Finally, we found that delta phase at stimulus onset was correlated with future behavioral adjustments. Together, our findings suggest that low frequency oscillations play a key role in monitoring and in updating temporal predictions.
Headache and Alexithymia in Children and Adolescents: What Is the Connection?

Background: Headache is one of the most common complaints in children and adolescents and comorbidity rates are very high and the major associated diseases are depression, anxiety, atopic disorders, sleep, and behavioral disorders. In recent years, it has been highlighted that difficulties regulating emotions such as alexithymia have also been associated with diagnosis of somatization. Methods: We carried out a mini review analyzing the relation between alexithymia and primary headache (e.g., migraine and tension type headache) in children and adolescents by synthesizing the relevant studies in the literature on PubMed, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar. Search terms were “alexithymia” combined with the “primary headache,” “migraine,” “tension type headache,” “children,” and “adolescents. ” Results: All analyzed studies found higher levels of alexithymia in children and adolescents with headache than control groups but there are different opinions about the relationship between headache and alexithymia. For example, some studies suggest that the association between headache and alexithymia in children may be due to an incomplete development of emotive competency or a general immature cognitive development, instead other studies found a correlation between headache symptoms, insecure attachment, and alexithymia. There seems to be also differences between children with migraine compared to those with tension type headache (TTH). Conclusion: There are some studies on adults suffering from headache or migraine and alexithymia, but there is only a moderate amount of research on pediatric age with different opinions and theories about this relationship. Further studies on children and adolescents are necessary to effectively understand this relationship and to help children to reduce headache and improve emotional consciousness.
Corrosion protection and mechanical performance of SiO2 films deposited via PECVD on OT59 brass

Purpose – To evaluate the corrosion performance and nano‐mechanical behaviour of a brass substrate covered by different thick SiO2 layers deposited by means of plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) technique.Design/methodology/approach – The comparison between laboratory and “industrial” objects revealed a very good corrosion behaviour and good mechanical performance of both of them: in particular it was possible to modulate the surface treatment to solve various problems from the industrial point of view.Findings – It was possible to reduce the Cu migration into the SiO2 coating during the PECVD deposition at a negligible level and to control it by the deposition; further, the nano‐indentation tests revealed the great utility of the coating annealing in obtaining a significant improvement of the mechanical properties of the coated objects.Research limitations/implications – Even if some industrial problems were solved (minimization of the presence of the coating defects and transparency of t.
Can endurance training improve physical capacity and quality of life in young Fontan patients?

Abstract Objective Children after Fontan palliation have reduced exercise capacity and quality of life. Our aim was to study whether endurance training could improve physical capacity and quality of life in Fontan patients. Methods Fontan patients (n=30) and healthy age- and gender-matched control subjects (n=25) performed a 6-minute walk test at submaximal capacity and a maximal cycle ergometer test. Quality of life was assessed with Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4.0 questionnaires for children and parents. All tests were repeated after a 12-week endurance training programme and after 1 year. Results Patients had decreased submaximal and maximal exercise capacity (maximal oxygen uptake 35.0±5.1 ml/minute per·kg versus 43.7±8.4 ml/minute·per·kg, p<0.001) and reported a lower quality of life score (70.9±9.9 versus 85.7±8.0, p<0.001) than controls. After training, patients improved their submaximal exercise capacity in a 6-minute walk test (from 590.7±65.5 m to 611.8±70.9 m, p<0.05) and reported a higher quality of life (p<0.01), but did not improve maximal exercise capacity. At follow-up, submaximal exercise capacity had increased further and improved quality of life was sustained. The controls improved their maximal exercise capacity (p<0.05), but not submaximal exercise capacity or quality of life after training. At follow-up, improvement of maximal exercise capacity was sustained. Conclusions We believe that an individualised endurance training programme for Fontan patients improves submaximal exercise capacity and quality of life in Fontan patients and the effect on quality of life appears to be long-lasting.
Stress-strain behavior of carbon filament yarns under high strain rates

Fiber-reinforced composites used in numerous technical applications have to meet the ever increasing safety requirements. Resistance to extreme stress under high velocity impact loads assumes even greater significance. Previous studies on the behavior of fiber-reinforced composites under impact loads provide little insight about the properties of filament yarns, a basis for many composite applications. Hence this paper focuses on the development of a suitable test method for performing high speed tensile tests on all filament yarn types, and the acquisition and analysis of the test results. This will enable the derivation of material models for their usage in the field of composites applications. Initially, the widely used carbon fiber filament yarns have been tested. The conclusive test results with a reduced yarn clamp mass and high stiffness of the test apparatus indicate that tensile strength and modulus of elasticity of carbon filament yarns increase with higher strain rates.