Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sélection de variables pour la classification non supervisée par mélanges gaussiens. Application à l'étude de données transcriptomes.

Nous nous interessons a la selection de variables en classification non supervisee par melanges gaussiens. Ces travaux sont en particulier motives par la classification de genes a partir de donnees transcriptomes. Dans les deux parties de cette these, le probleme est ramene a celui de la selection de modeles. Dans la premiere partie, le modele propose, generalisant celui de Raftery et Dean (2006) permet de specifier le role des variables vis-a-vis du processus de classification. Ainsi les variables non significatives peuvent etre dependantes d'une partie des variables retenues pour la classification. Ces modeles sont compares grâce a un critere de type BIC. Leur identifiabilite est etablie et la consistance du critere est demontree sous des conditions de regularite. En pratique, le statut des variables est obtenu grâce a un algorithme imbriquant deux algorithmes descendants de selection de variables pour la classification et pour la regression lineaire. L'interet de cette procedure est en particulier illustre sur des donnees transcriptomes. Une amelioration de la modelisation du role des variables, consistant a repartir les variables declarees non significatives entre celles dependantes et celles independantes des variables significatives pour la classification, est ensuite proposee pour pallier une surpenalisation de certains modeles. Enfin, la technologie des puces a ADN engendrant de nombreuses donnees manquantes, une extension de notre procedure tenant compte de l'existence de ces valeurs manquantes est suggeree, evitant leur estimation prealable. Dans la seconde partie, des melanges gaussiens de formes specifiques sont consideres et un critere penalise non asymptotique est propose pour selectionner simultanement le nombre de composantes du melange et l'ensemble des variables pertinentes pour la classification. Un theoreme general de selection de modeles pour l'estimation de densites par maximum de vraisemblance, propose par Massart (2007), est utilise pour determiner la forme de la penalite. Ce theoreme necessite le controle de l'entropie a crochets des familles de melanges gaussiens multidimensionnels etudiees. Ce critere dependant de constantes multiplicatives inconnues, l'heuristique dite « de la pente » est mise en œuvre pour permettre une utilisation effective de ce critere.
Spam Works: Evidence from Stock Touts and Corresponding Market Activity

We assess the impact of spam that touts stocks upon the trading activity of those stocks and sketch how profitable such spamming might be for spammers and how harmful it is to those who heed advice in stock-touting e-mails. We find convincing evidence that stock prices are being manipulated through spam. We suggest that the effectiveness of spammed stock touting calls into question prevailing models of securities regulation that rely principally on the proper labeling of information and disclosure of conflicts of interest as means of protecting consumers, and we propose several regulatory and industry interventions. Based on a large sample of touted stocks listed on the Pink Sheets quotation system and a large sample of spam emails touting stocks, we find that stocks experience a significantly positive return on days prior to heavy touting via spam. Volume of trading responds positively and significantly to heavy touting. For a stock that is touted at some point during our sample period, the probability of it being the most actively traded stock in our sample jumps from 4% on a day when there is no touting activity to 70% on a day when there is touting activity. Returns in the days following touting are significantly negative. The evidence accords with a hypothesis that spammers "buy low and spam high," purchasing penny stocks with comparatively low liquidity, then touting them - perhaps immediately after an independently occurring upward tick in price, or after having caused the uptick themselves by engaging in preparatory purchasing - in order to increase or maintain trading activity and price enough to unload their positions at a profit. We find that prolific spamming greatly affects the trading volume of a targeted stock, drumming up buyers to prevent the spammer's initial selling from depressing the stock's price. Subsequent selling by the spammer (or others) while this buying pressure subsides results in negative returns following touting. Before brokerage fees, the average investor who buys a stock on the day it is most heavily touted and sells it 2 days after the touting ends will lose close to 5.5%. For those touted stocks with above-average levels of touting, a spammer who buys on the day before unleashing touts and sells on the day his or her touting is the heaviest, on average, will earn 4.29% before transaction costs. The underlying data and interactive charts showing price and volume changes are also made available.
Hypocretin (orexin) enhances neuron activity and cell synchrony in developing mouse GFP‐expressing locus coeruleus

The noradrenergic neurons of the locus coeruleus (LC) play an important role in modulating arousal and selective attention. A similar function has been attributed to the hypocretin neurons of the hypothalamus which maintain a strong synaptic projection to the LC. As the LC can be difficult to detect in the embryonic and neonatal mouse brain, we used a new transgenic mouse with strong GFP expression in the LC under the regulation of a mouse prion promoter. GFP colocalized with immunoreactive tyrosine hydroxylase in sections and dispersed cultures of the LC, allowing visualization and whole cell or single‐unit recording from the LC in early stages of cellular development. GFP expression in the LC had no apparent effect on cellular physiology, including resting membrane potential, input resistance, spike threshold, depolarization‐induced spike frequency increase, current‐voltage relations, or hypocretin responses. In slices of the mature mouse and rat LC, hypocretin‐1 and −2 increased spike frequency, with hypocretin‐1 being an order of magnitude more potent. In the postnatal day (P) 0‐2 developing mouse slice during a developmental period when spikes could be elicited in some cells, other developing LC neurons showed rhythmic, subthreshold oscillations (≈1 Hz) in membrane potential (2.9‐7.4 mV amplitude); others were arrhythmic. Hypocretin‐1 depolarized the membrane potential, resulting in the appearance of spikes in developing LC cells that showed no spikes under control conditions. In the presence of TTX and glutamate receptor antagonists, hypocretin‐1‐mediated inward currents were blocked by substitution of choline‐Cl for NaCl, suggesting an excitatory mechanism based on an inward cation current. Hypocretin‐1 initiated strong regular membrane voltage oscillations in arrhythmic immature neurons. Hypocretin increased the temporal synchrony of action potentials studied with dual‐cell recording in P1‐P5 mouse LC slices, consistent with the view that synchrony of LC output, associated with improved cognitive performance, may be increased by hypocretin. Together these data suggest that the hypothalamus, via hypocretin projections, may therefore be in a position to enhance arousal and modulate plasticity in higher brain centres through the developing LC.
Significance of serum inhibin in female infertility.

BACKGROUND Serum inhibin, a glycoprotein hormone is secreted from granulosa cells in females and has been shown to suppress secretions of FSH from pituitary. METHODS A total of 45 women, 30 infertile subjects and 15 age matched fertile controls were included in this study. Blood samples from each subject were collected during follicular and luteal phases separately and were tested for serum inhibin levels using an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). RESULTS Serum inhibin concentration of infertile subjects during follicular phase was 35.5 +/- 22.94 pg/ml and luteal phase was 32.4 +/- 24.2 pg/ml. Whereas serum inhibin level in follicular phase was 10.39 +/- 2.03 pg/ml and luteal phase was 12.78 +/- 6.86 pg/ml of the fertile subjects. Serum inhibin was significantly raised in the infertile subjects as compared to the fertile subjects (P < 0.05). However serum inhibin concentration during the follicular and luteal phases of the infertile subjects was not significantly different (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION It is thus concluded that increased serum inhibin level may be treated as sensitive and early index of declining ovarian function.
Detection by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays of antibody specific for Pseudomonas proteases and exotoxin A in sera from cystic fibrosis patients

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were developed to measure serum antibody specific for Pseudomonas elastase, alkaline protease, and exotoxin A. Antibody responses to each Pseudomonas antigen were measured in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients who were not colonized with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in those who were colonized, in those who were chronically infected with this organism, and in control subjects. Antibody levels for each antigen in the colonized and infected CF patients were higher than levels in uncolonized CF patients or non-CF control subjects. The antibody responses to elastase were similar in patients of the colonized and infected groups. However, infected CF patients had significantly elevated levels of antibody to exotoxin A (P less than 0.01) and alkaline protease (P less than 0.05) when compared with patients simply colonized with P. aeruginosa. These findings confirm that Pseudomonas alkaline protease, elastase, and exotoxin A are produced by Pseudomonas strains which colonize and infect CF patients. As an adjunct to established procedures (X-ray, microbiological culture, etc.), the antitoxin and anti-protease enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays may be clinically useful tests for differentiating colonized CF patients from those who have more severe Pseudomonas pulmonary infections.
Tone-aware sparse representation for face recognition

It is still a very challenging task to recognize a face in a real world scenario, since the face may be corrupted by many unknown factors. Among them, illumination variation is an important one, which will be mainly discussed in this paper. First, the illumination variations caused by shadow or overexposure are regarded as a multiplicative scaling image over the original face image. The purpose of introducing scaling vector (or scaling image) is to enhance the pixels in shadow regions, while depress the pixels in overexposure regions. Then, based on the scaling vector, we propose a novel tone-aware sparse representation (TASR) model. Finally, a EM-like algorithm is proposed to solve the proposed TASR model. Extensive experiments on the benchmark face databases show that our method is more robust against illumination variations.
Auxiliary Learning by Implicit Differentiation

Training with multiple auxiliary tasks is a common practice used in deep learning for improving the performance on the main task of interest. Two main challenges arise in this multi-task learning setting: (i) Designing useful auxiliary tasks; and (ii) Combining auxiliary tasks into a single coherent loss. We propose a novel framework, \textit{AuxiLearn}, that targets both challenges, based on implicit differentiation. First, when useful auxiliaries are known, we propose learning a network that combines all losses into a single coherent objective function. This network can learn \textit{non-linear} interactions between auxiliary tasks. Second, when no useful auxiliary task is known, we describe how to learn a network that generates a meaningful, novel auxiliary task. We evaluate AuxiLearn in a series of tasks and domains, including image segmentation and learning with attributes. We find that AuxiLearn consistently improves accuracy compared with competing methods.
Development and Validation of the Celiac Disease Questionnaire (CDQ), a Disease-specific Health-related Quality of Life Measure for Adult Patients With Celiac Disease

Background and Goals To develop and validate a disease-specific instrument for measuring health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in patients with adult celiac disease (CD). Study Based on a Medline search of the literature, responses from 10 CD patients and 4 medical experts items potentially affecting HRQOL in CD were identified. This pool was reduced and pretested by 10 other patients and 4 medical experts constructing a preliminary version of the Celiac Disease Questionnaire (CDQ). In a national survey involving 522 respondents of 1000 CD patients (median age 45 y; 78% female) posted by the German Celiac Society completed a medical and sociodemographic questionnaire, the CDQ, the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale German Version HADS-D and the Gießener Symptom List (GBB 24). Subscales were constructed by a principal factor analysis following predefined criteria and validated with other HRQOL measures. Forty-seven out of one hundred patients answered the CDQ a second time 4 weeks after the first posting for the assessment of test-retest reliability. Results The factor analysis suggested 4 domains with 7 items each: emotional and social problems, disease-related worries, and gastrointestinal symptoms. The Cronbach α for the subscales ranged from 0.80 to 0.91. Test-retest reliability correlations ranged from 0.45 to 0.89. The correlation coefficients with comparable subscales of other instruments ranged between 0.26 and 0.79. The CDQ discriminated in all subscales patients with CD-associated diseases from patients without CD-associated diseases (P<0.001). Conclusions The CDQ is an instrument suited for future use in clinical and research settings.
The role of subcontracting on innovation: an assessment of small and medium enterprises in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This paper investigated the influence of subcontracting on innovation and its impact on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Onitsha, Nigeria. The paper adopted a number of methods comprising of field observations, reference to relevant literature, and a questionnaire survey of 113 SMEs. Regression, mean and standard deviation were used to analyse the data. In line with the literature, this paper identified seven (7) dimensions of subcontracting assistance from large scale industries to small business firms. The paper found that subcontracting relationship between large scale industries and SMEs is inclined to production and product-related cooperation where the contractors are concerned with meeting fluctuation in demand and shortening long delivery times. This paper concluded by suggesting that subcontracting relationship between SMEs and large scale industries should not be restricted to production, purchase, finance and marketing assistance. It should also be extended to human resource development and organisational-know-how.
Was Adam Really a Man or Was Eve Missing a 12th Rib

A 15-year-old Caucasian female was evaluated by the primary care physician for hypertension. Chest X-ray showed an absence of the 12th rib on the left side (Figure 1). A computed tomography scan performed at an outside facility reported a cystic lesion in her spleen, a lytic lesion of her 12th rib, and a possible para vertebral mass (Figure 2). She had no specific complaints or subjective symptoms and denied headache, fever, flushing, night sweats, palpitation, cough, diarrhea loss of appetite, or weight loss. Review of systems was otherwise negative. Differential diagnosis to explain the hypertension and the mass included paraganglioma or extra-adrenal pheomochromocytoma with hypertension, osteogenic/Ewing’s sarcoma, or a functional neuroendocrine tumor. She was transferred to the pediatric oncology service. Her past medical history and review of systems were noncontributory. Family history was significant for father in his 30s with hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes. Her paternal grandfather had pancreatic cancer at 52 years of age. Her mother and 3 siblings had no significant medical history. Social history showed an active role in sports and good school performance. Vital signs on exam were as follows: temperature 97.5°F, pulse 78 beats/min, blood pressure 145/78 mm Hg, weight 69 kg, and height 158 cm. Physical exam showed a mildly obese, alert, and active girl in no acute distress. Systemic exam was within normal limits. Pertinent laboratory values included normal erythrocyte sedimentation rate 6 (normal = 0-20 mm/h), alkaline phosphatase 136 (normal = 74-390 U/L), C-reactive proteiv <0.5 (normal = 01-8.2), lactate dehydrogenase 196 (normal = 110-260 mg/dL), and uric acid 2.0 (normal = 2.4-5.7 mg/dL) levels. A lipid panel showed elevated serum triglycerides 412 (normal = 30-150 mg/dL), elevated low-density lipoprotein >400 (normal = 68-110), low high-density lipoprotein 34 (normal = 40-75 mg/dL), and a borderline high serum cholesterol 177 (normal = 120-199 mg/dL). She had an elevated thyroid-stimulating hormone 6.48 (normal = 0.4-5.0 uIU/mL), but normal Free T4 0.84 (normal = 0.71-1.51 ng/dL). Review of the computed tomography scan showed an expansile lytic lesion of the left 12th rib. Magnetic resonance imaging at our facility confirmed an expansile rib lesion with signal characteristic of a telangiectatic osteosarcoma, atypical aneurysmal bone cyst, or an osteoblastoma. The bone lesion showed mass effect on the surrounding soft tissues including the diaphragm and paraspinous musculature.
Survival mechanisms of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis within host species and in the environment—A review

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis causes chronic inflammation of the intestine known as Johne’s disease (JD) in domestic and wild ruminants including primates. MAP has also been associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) so called Crohn’s disease (CD) of human beings, which is incurable even after surgery. By virtue of the pasteurization resistant power, high endemicity of the infection in animals continues to be the permanent source of infection to human population. High bio-burden of MAP in wide range of biotic (animal hosts including human beings) and abiotic environment in each and every country where it has been investigated, serves a reminder about the survival abilities of the MAP in diverse range of environmental conditions. Ability of the MAP to evade immune system of the host and the temporal events during infection of the macro-phages, is an area of major concern and research activities as the pattern of distribution are quiet different from those of other pathogenic intracellular organisms. Moreover, the organism can survive over a wide range of environmental conditions such as high and low environmental temperatures, pasteurization, low pH, and high salt concentration etc. This superior survival efficiency from environmental degradation and dormancy within host allows the pathogen to be available for causing disease and pathogenicity in animals and human beings, when conditions are favorable. Perusal of literature reveal that, despite the availability of whole genome sequence of MAP, a very little is known about the replication, persistence and survival mechanisms of this pathogen. Therefore, this review tries to address the survival mechanisms of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis in the different host species and adverse environmental conditions in order to allow designing of more rational diagnostic and control procedures.
Dosimetric and geometric evaluation of a hybrid strategy of offline adaptive planning and online image guidance for prostate cancer radiotherapy

For prostate cancer patients, online image-guided (IG) radiotherapy has been widely used in clinic to correct the translational inter-fractional motion at each treatment fraction. For uncertainties that cannot be corrected online, such as rotation and deformation of the target volume, margins are still required to be added to the clinical target volume (CTV) for the treatment planning. Offline adaptive radiotherapy has been implemented to optimize the treatment for each individual patient based on the measurements at early stages of treatment process. It has been shown that offline adaptive radiotherapy can effectively reduce the required margin. Recently a hybrid strategy of offline adaptive replanning and online IG was proposed and the geometric evaluation was performed. It was found that the planning margins can further be reduced by 1–2 mm compared to online IG only strategy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the dosimetric benefits of such a hybrid strategy on the target and organs at risk. A total of 420 repeated helical computed tomography scans from 28 patients were included in the study. Both low-risk patients (LRP, CTV = prostate) and intermediate-risk patients (IRP, CTV = prostate + seminal vesicles, SV) were included in the simulation. Two registration methods, based on center-of-mass shift of prostate only and prostate plus SV, were performed for IRP. The intensity-modulated radiotherapy was used in the simulation. Criteria on both cumulative and fractional doses were evaluated. Furthermore, the geometric evaluation was extended to investigate the optimal number of fractions necessary to construct the internal target volume (ITV) for the hybrid strategy. The dosimetric margin improvement was smaller than its geometric counterpart and was in the range of 0–1 mm. The optimal number of fractions necessary for the ITV construction is 2 for LRPs and 3–4 for IRPs in a hypofractionation protocol. A new cumulative index of target volume was proposed for the evaluation of adaptive radiotherapy strategies, and it was found that it had the advantages over other indices in evaluating different adaptive radiotherapy strategies.
Intrapartum Temperature Elevation, Epidural Use, and Adverse Outcome in Term Infants

OBJECTIVES: To examine the association of intrapartum temperature elevation with adverse neonatal outcome among low-risk women receiving epidural analgesia and evaluate the association of epidural with adverse neonatal outcome without temperature elevation. METHODS: We studied all low-risk nulliparous women with singleton pregnancies ≥37 weeks delivering at our hospital during 2000, excluding pregnancies where infants had documented sepsis, meningitis, or a major congenital anomaly. Neonatal outcomes were compared between women receiving (n = 1538) and not receiving epidural analgesia (n = 363) in the absence of intrapartum temperature elevation (≤99.5°F) and according to the level of intrapartum temperature elevation within the group receiving epidural (n = 2784). Logistic regression was used to evaluate neonatal outcome while controlling for confounders. RESULTS: Maternal temperature >100.4°F developed during labor in 19.2% (535/2784) of women receiving epidural compared with 2.4% (10/425) not receiving epidural. In the absence of intrapartum temperature elevation (≤99.5°F), no significant differences were observed in adverse neonatal outcomes between women receiving and not receiving epidural. Among women receiving epidural, a significant linear trend was observed between maximum maternal temperature and all neonatal outcomes examined including hypotonia, assisted ventilation, 1- and 5-min Apgar scores <7, and early-onset seizures. In regression analyses, infants born to women with fever >101°F had a two- to sixfold increased risk of all adverse outcomes examined. CONCLUSIONS: The proportion of infants experiencing adverse outcomes increased with the degree of epidural-related maternal temperature elevation. Epidural use without temperature elevation was not associated with any of the adverse outcomes we studied.