Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Economic evaluation of rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisolone for advanced follicular lymphoma

The addition of rituximab to cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisolone (CVP) for advanced follicular lymphoma increases median time to progression by 17 months. A US societal cost-effectiveness of R-CVP versus CVP is estimated for a representative 50-year-old patient. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival are based on a randomized Phase III trial. Costs are estimated using Medicare reimbursement rates and published drug price data, and include drug and administration costs, adverse events, treatment of relapses, and end-of-life care. Utility estimates are derived from the literature and a 3% discount rate is employed. Mean overall survival is projected to be 1.51 years longer for patients assigned to R-CVP versus CVP. The cost per quality-adjusted year of life gained is $28,565. The utility associated with stable or progressive disease and the unit drug cost of rituximab most influence the findings. The cost-effectiveness ratio of R-CVP compared with CVP is projected to be cost-effective in the United States under a range of sensitivity analyses.
Zeus: a system for algorithm animation and multi-view editing

Algorithm animation is a form of program visualization that is concerned with dynamic and interactive graphical displays of a program's fundamental operations. The paper describes the Zeus algorithm animation system. Zeus is noteworthy for its use of objects, strong-typing, parallelism, and graphical development of views. Also of interest is how the system can be used for building multi-view editors. <<ETX>>
A Distributed Infrastructure Supporting Personalized Services for the Mobile Web

Personalized services are a key feature for the success of the next generation Web that is accessed by heterogeneous and mobile cclient deviceslient devices. The need to provide high performance and to preserve user data privacy opens a novel dimension in the design of infrastructures and request dispatching algorithms to support personalized services for the Mobile Web. Performance issues are typically addressed by distributed architectures consisting of multiple nodes. Personalized services that are often based on sensitive user information may introduce constraints on the service location when the nodes of the distributed architecture do not provide the same level of security. In this paper, we propose an infrastructure and related dispatching algorithms that aim to combine performance and privacy requirements. The proposed scheme may efficiently support personalized services for the Mobile Web especially if compared with existing solutions that separately address performance and privacy issues. Our proposal guarantees that up to the 97% of the requests accessing sensitive user information are assigned to the most secure nodes with limited penalty consequences on the response time.
Subsurface Texture Mapping

This article presents a rendering technique for multilayered materials. Unlike existing methods, our technique does not assume that the thickness of these layers is constant. We use relief texture mapping to model a material's interior. Instead of representing the surface details, we use this method to represent the object's inner structure. We describe the material's layers using a simple 2D texture, in which each channel encodes a thickness. Our method supports nonplanar surfaces and falls between subsurface rendering methods based on surfaces and 3D texture-based algorithms. Furthermore, our solution provides a compact way to design translucent objects using a small amount of data.
Developmentally regulated appearance of spliced variants of type XII collagen in the cornea.

PURPOSE To determine whether temporal and spatial changes in the distribution of the long and short alternatively spliced variants of type XII collagen are associated with any specific morphogenetic events in pre- and postnatal development of the cornea and surrounding tissues. METHODS The distribution of alternatively spliced variants of type XII collagen in fetal and newborn rabbit tissues was analyzed immunohistochemically using monoclonal antibodies that recognize either only the long form or both the short and the long forms of type XII collagen. RESULTS During early fetal development of the cornea in rabbit (days 14 -17), the short form of type XII collagen was detected in the corneal stroma, the sclera, and the stroma in the rudimentary eyelid folds, whereas the long form was present only in the sclera. The long form was first evident in the cornea at day 24 but only in the posterior stroma. At later stages of prenatal development, the distribution of the long variant gradually extended toward the anterior stroma and in the newborn rabbit, the long variant was distributed throughout the entire stroma. However, in the eyelid, although the short form was present along the entire subepidermal regions both during fetal and neonatal development, the long form was transiently expressed between days 21 and 24 and was restricted to the subepidermal regions at the junction of the opposing eyelids. The long form of type XII collagen was first detectable in the basal epithelial cells and in its basement membrane (BM) at day 12 after birth, just before the opening of the eyelids. It continued to be present in the corneal BM zone in the adult rabbit but was not present in the limbal or conjunctival BM zone. CONCLUSIONS The expression and distribution of the alternatively spliced forms of type XII collagen are developmentally and differentially regulated in the cornea, the sclera, and the eyelid. Although the short form is expressed in the stromal matrices of the cornea and surrounding tissues from early stages of corneal development, the appearance and distribution of the long variant form of type XII collagen coincide with the pattern of stromal condensation. Its first appearance in the corneal epithelial BM precedes the eyelid opening by 1 to 2 days, possibly suggesting that it may be involved in the tighter anchoring of the corneal epithelium to the underlying tissue or in promoting stromal condensation to assist in the separation of the corneal epithelium from the juxtaposed palpebral conjunctival epithelium of the eyelid.
Arc‐Disjoint Paths in Decomposable Digraphs

We prove that the weak k‐linkage problem is polynomial for every fixed k for totally Φ‐decomposable digraphs, under appropriate hypothesis on Φ. We then apply this and recent results by Fradkin and Seymour (on the weak k‐linkage problem for digraphs of bounded independence number or bounded cut‐width) to get polynomial algorithms for some classes of digraphs like quasi‐transitive digraphs, extended semicomplete digraphs, locally semicomplete digraphs (all of which contain the class of semicomplete digraphs as a subclass) and directed cographs.
Learning Taxonomic Relations from Heterogeneous Sources of Evidence

Abstract. We present a novel approach to learning taxonomic relations betweenterms by considering multiple and heterogeneous sources of evidence. In order toderive an optimal combination of these sources, we exploit a machine-learning ap-proach, representing all the sources of evidence as ﬁrst-order features and trainingstandard classiﬁers. We consider in particular different f eatures derived from Word-Net, an approach matching Hearst-style patterns in a corpusand on the Web as wellas further methods mentioned in the literature. In particular, we explore differentclassiﬁers as well as various strategies for dealing with un balanced datasets. Weevaluate our approach by comparing the results with a reference taxonomy for thetourism domain.Keywords. ontology learning, taxonomies, text and web mining, machine learning 1. IntroductionTaxonomies, thesauri or concept hierarchies are a crucial component of many applica-tions within the Semantic Web [2], Knowledge Management [11], Information Retrieval[1,26], Text Clustering [17], Natural Language Processing and Information Systems ingeneral. In fact, there has been a long tradition in Artiﬁcia l Intelligence and related ﬁeldssuch as Natural Language Processing or Information Retrieval to automatically learntaxonomies from data. As text documents are massively available, most researchers haveattempted to learn taxonomies on the basis of textual input, whereby mainly three differ-ent learning paradigms have been exploited. First, several researchers have attempted toﬁnd taxonomic relations expressed more or less explicitly i n texts by matching certainpatterns which we will refer to as Hearst-patterns in line with Hearst’s seminal work [15]and follow-up work in [1], [6], [18] and [22]. Some researchers have even went furtherand searched for these patterns on the Web [7,9,20]. Other researchers have used theinternal structure of noun phrases to ﬁnd taxonomic relatio ns [4,29]. Second, many re-searchers follow Harris’ distributional hypothesis basically claiming that words or termsare semantically similar to the extent to which they share similar syntactic contexts [14]. The most prominent examples of this approach are probably [3], [5], [10], [12], [16],[21], and more recently also [8] and [24]. Third and ﬁnally, t here are also approachesrelying on a document-based notion of term subsumption suchas the one found in [26].
Commensal Bacteria and Expression of Two Major Intestinal Chemokines, TECK/CCL25 and MEC/CCL28, and Their Receptors

Background CCL25/TECK and CCL28/MEC are CC chemokines primarily expressed in thymic dendritic cells and mucosal epithelial cells. Their receptors, CCR9 and CCR10, are mainly expressed on T and B lymphocytes. In human, mouse, pig and sheep CCL25 and CCL28 play an important role in the segregation and the compartmentalization of the mucosal immune system. As evidenced by early comparisons of germ-free and conventional animals, the intestinal bacterial microflora has a marked effect on host intestinal immune functions. However, little is known about the impact of bacterial colonization on constitutive and induced chemokine expressions as well as on the generation of anti-inflammatory mechanisms. Methodology/Principal Findings Therefore, we decided to focus by qPCR on the mRNA expression of two main gut chemokines, CCL25 and CCL28, their receptors CCR9 and CCR10, the Tregs marker Foxp3 and anti-inflammatory cytokines TGF-β and IL-10 following colonization with different bacterial species within the small intestine. To accomplish this we used an original germ-free neonatal pig model and monoassociated pigs with a representative Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) or Gram-positive (Lactobacillus fermentum) commensal bacteria commonly isolated from the neonatal pig intestine. Our results show a consistent and marked effect of microbial colonization on the mRNA expression of intestinal chemokines, chemokine receptors, Foxp3 and TGF-β. Moreover, as evidenced by in vitro experiments using two different cell lines, the pattern of regulation of CCL25 and CCL28 expression in the gut appears complex and suggests an additional role for in vivo factors. Conclusions/Significance Taken together, the results highlight the key role of bacterial microflora in the development of a functional intestinal immune system in an elegant and relevant model for human immune system development.
Neuroprotective effect of vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) in a mouse model of Parkinson's disease by blocking microglial activation

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder with no effective protective treatment, characterized by a massive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SNpc) and the subsequent loss of their projecting nerve fibers in the striatum. To elucidate PD pathogenic factors, and thus to develop therapeutic strategies, a murine PD model based on the administration of the neurotoxin 1‐methyl‐4‐phenyl‐1,2,3,6‐tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) has been used extensively. It has been demonstrated that activated microglia cells actively participate in the pathogenesis of MPTP‐induced PD through the release of cytotoxic factors. Because current treatments for PD are not effective, considerable research focused lately on a number of regulatory molecules termed microglia‐deactivating factors. Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), a neuropeptide with a potent anti‐inflammatory effect, has been found to be protective in several inflammatory disorders. This study investigates the putative protective effect of VIP in the MPTP model for PD. VIP treatment significantly decreases MPTP‐induced dopaminergic neuronal loss in SNpc and nigrostriatal nerve‐fiber loss. VIP prevents MPTP‐induced activation of microglia in SNpc and striatum and the expression of the cytotoxic mediators, iNOS, interleukin 1β, and numor necrosis factor α. VIP emerges as a potential valuable neuroprotective agent for the treatment of pathologic conditions in the central nervous system, such as PD, where inflammation‐induced neurodegeneration occurs.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Applications in Neuropsychiatry

In the 1990s, it is difficult to open a newspaper or watch television and not find someone claiming that magnets promote healing. Rarely do these claims stem from double-blind, peer-reviewed studies, making it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. The current fads resemble those at the end of the last century, when many were falsely touting the benefits of direct electrical and weak magnetic stimulation. Yet in the midst of this popular interest in magnetic therapy, a new neuroscience field has developed that uses powerful magnetic fields to alter brain activity—transcranial magnetic stimulation. This review examines the basic principles underlying transcranial magnetic stimulation, and describes how it differs from electrical stimulation or other uses of magnets. Initial studies in this field are critically summarized, particularly as they pertain to the pathophysiology and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a promising new research and, perhaps, therapeutic tool, but more work remains before it can be fully integrated in psychiatry's diagnostic and therapeutic armamentarium.
Association of emphysema, gout, and inflammatory markers with long-term incidence of age-related maculopathy.

OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship of 2 diseases associated with systemic inflammatory response, emphysema and gout, and selected markers of systemic inflammation with the 10-year incidence of age-related maculopathy. DESIGN Population-based cohort study. PARTICIPANTS We included persons aged 43 to 86 years at baseline examination from 1988 to 1990 living in Beaver Dam, Wis, of whom 3684 subjects participated in a 5-year follow-up examination and 2764 participated in a 10-year follow-up. METHODS Standardized protocols for physical examination, blood collection, administration of a questionnaire, and stereoscopic color fundus photography to determine the presence of age-related maculopathy. Standard univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Incidence and progression of age-related maculopathy. RESULTS While controlling for age, sex, and other factors (history of heavy drinking or smoking, systolic blood pressure, and vitamin use), a higher white blood cell count at baseline was associated with the 10-year incidence of drusen 125 microm or greater in diameter (risk ratio [RR] per 10(6)/ microL = 1.10; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03-1.17), retinal pigment epithelial depigmentation (RR = 2.08; 95% CI, 1.01-1.16), and progression of age-related maculopathy (RR = 1.09; 95% CI, 1.03-1.15). A lower serum albumin level was associated with the incidence of exudative macular degeneration (RR per grams per deciliter = 0.31; 95% CI, 0.13-0.76). A history of emphysema at baseline was associated with the incidence of retinal pigment epithelial depigmentation (RR = 2.84; 95% CI, 1.40-5.78), increased retinal pigment (RR = 2.20; 95% CI, 1.11-4.35), and exudative macular degeneration (RR = 5.12; 95% CI, 1.63-16.06); a history of gout was associated with the incidence of pure geographic atrophy (RR = 3.48; 95% CI, 1.27-9.53). CONCLUSIONS These findings indicate modest relationships between both increased white blood cell count and emphysema and the increased 10-year incidence of lesions defining early and late age-related maculopathy. Further investigation of these relationships in other studies is needed.
Causal Conclusions that Flip Repeatedly and Their Justification

Over the past two decades, several consistent procedures have been designed to infer causal conclusions from observational data. We prove that if the true causal network might be an arbitrary, linear Gaussian network or a discrete Bayes network, then every unambiguous causal conclusion produced by a consistent method from non-experimental data is subject to reversal as the sample size increases any finite number of times. That result, called the causal flipping theorem, extends prior results to the effect that causal discovery cannot be reliable on a given sample size. We argue that since repeated flipping of causal conclusions is unavoidable in principle for consistent methods, the best possible discovery methods are consistent methods that retract their earlier conclusions no more than necessary. A series of simulations of various methods across a wide range of sample sizes illustrates concretely both the theorem and the principle of comparing methods in terms of retractions.
Multi-focus Image Fusion Scheme Using Adaptive Dual-Channel Pulse Coupled Neural Network

Image fusion combines information from multiple images of the same scene to obtain a composite image which is more suitable for further image processing tasks. By analyzing the pulse coupled neural network(PCNN), and combining with the characteristics of multi-focus image, a novel PCNN model dual-channel PCNN(Dual-channel PCNN) was proposed in this paper. The mathematical model was first given, then a novel sum-modified-Laplacian(NSML) was selected as the focus measure to compute the sharpness of the source images, and then the sharpness of each pixel was used as the linking strength of the corresponding neuron. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms some previous fusion methods, both in visual effect and objective evaluation criteria.
Simple analysis of graph tests for linearity and PCP

We give a simple analysis of the PCP (probabilistically Checkable Proof) with low amortized query complexity of Samorodnitsky and Trevisan (2000). The analysis also applied to the linearity testing over finite fields, giving a better estimate of the acceptance probability in terms of the distance of the tested function to the closest linear function.
Implementation of high-speed fixed-point dividers on FPGA

Study deals with implementations of fixed-point division modules based on different algorithms on basis of Xilinx FPGAs. We show that our implementation of the nonrestoring algorithm is significantly faster and smaller than the 32-bit IP Core “Pipelined Divider” from Xilinx. For example, the speed of the 32-bit designed module is almost 245 MHz vs. 193 MHz from Xilinx divider. Moreover, high-speed parameterized modules are designed to provide arbitrary precision of the fixed-point division, for example, with 64-bit or 128-bit operands and large fixedpoint result.
Comparative Proteomic Analysis Identifies a Role for SUMO in Protein Quality Control

Changes in cellular SUMOylation occur in response to the accumulation of misfolded proteins. SUMO and the Proteasome Members of the family of ubiquitin-like posttranslational protein modifiers, such as small ubiquitin-like modifiers (SUMOs), share structural similarity with ubiquitin and form conjugates with target proteins to regulate many eukaryotic cellular functions. Noting that inhibition of the proteasome results in the accumulation of SUMO-conjugated proteins, Tatham et al. used mass spectrometric analysis of purified proteins to perform a system-wide analysis of protein SUMOylation in HeLa cells exposed to the proteasomal inhibitor MG132. Changes in SUMOylation were similar to those known to be triggered by heat stress and seemed to be secondary to the accumulation of misfolded proteins. In addition, SUMO-2 and ubiquitin were exchanged among substrates during proteasome inhibition. Together, these findings suggest SUMO proteins are involved in the response to the accumulation of misfolded proteins in cells. The small ubiquitin-like modifiers (SUMOs) alter the functions of diverse cellular proteins by covalent posttranslational modification and thus influence many cellular functions, including gene transcription, cell cycle, and DNA repair. Although conjugation by ubiquitin and SUMO-2/3 are largely functionally and mechanistically independent from one another, both appear to increase under conditions of proteasome inhibition. To better understand the relationship between SUMO and protein degradation by the proteasome, we performed a quantitative proteomic analysis of SUMO-2 substrates after short- and long-term inhibition of the proteasome with MG132. Comparisons with changes to the SUMO-2 conjugate subproteome in response to heat stress revealed qualitative and quantitative parallels between both conditions; however, in contrast to heat stress, the MG132-triggered increase in SUMO-2 conjugation depended strictly on protein synthesis, implying that the accumulation of newly synthesized, misfolded proteins destined for degradation by the proteasome triggered the SUMO conjugation response. Furthermore, proteasomal inhibition resulted in the accumulation of conjugated forms of all SUMO paralogs in insoluble protein inclusions and in the accumulation on SUMO-2 substrates of lysine-63–linked polyubiquitin chains, which are not thought to serve as signals for proteasome-mediated degradation. Together, these findings suggest multiple, proteasome-independent roles for SUMOs in the cellular response to the accumulation of misfolded proteins.