Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rituximab Added αIFN+CHVP Improves the Outcome of Follicular Lymphoma Patients with a High Tumor Burden: to First Analysis of the GELA-GOELAMS FL-2000 Randomized Trial in 359 Patients.

The monoclonal anti-CD20 antibody rituximab has been shown to induce a high response rate in follicular lymphoma patients and to improve the outcome when associated with CVP or CHOP in newly diagnosed patients. Rituximab synergy with αIFN has also been established in experimental and clinical studies. In order to investigate the benefit of rituximab when added to the classical association of αIFN with CHVP (cyclophosphamide 600 mg/m 2 , doxorubicin 25 mg/m 2 , etoposide 100 mg/m 2 on day 1 and prednisone 40 mg/m 2 day 1–5), the intergroup GELA-GOELAMS FL-2000 trial was initiated. Inclusion criteria consisted in untreated histologically proven stage II-IV follicular lymphoma (any grade) patients (18–75 years) with a high tumor burden consisting in the presence of at least one of the following criteria: B symptoms presence; ECOG PS≥1; LDH>normal value; β2-microglobulin≥3 mg/L; largest tumor≥7cm; three distinct nodes≥3cm; serous effusion, compression or symptomatic splenomegaly). Treatment in arm A consisted in CHVP (6 monthly courses + 6 courses every 2 months) associated with αIFN-2a (4.5 MU [reduced at 3 MU > 70 years] 3 times a week) for 18 months and in arm B in 6 monthly courses of CHVP associated with 18 months of αIFN-2a combined with 6 infusions of 375 mg/m 2 rituximab (Day 1 and 8 course 3 & 4 ; day 1 courses 5 & 6). Patients were evaluated for response at 6 months and 18 months and followed every 3 months. From 05/2000 until 05/2002, 359 eligible patients were included (Arm A 175 pts and Arm B 184 pts) with the following characteristics: M/F =1; median age =60 years [25–75]; ECOG>1 =8%; B symptoms =27%; AA stage>II =87%; bone marrow involvement =58%; β2−m≥3mg/L =31%; LDH>N =37%; Hb≤12g/dL =18%; the FLIPI score was ≥3 in 56% of patients. This first analysis of all patients demonstrated a significant improvement of response to therapy in arm B as compared to arm A, both at 6 months [CR+CRru 49% vs. 76%; PR 36% vs. 18%; stable, progression or death 15% vs. 6%; respectively (P
The complete mitochondrial genome of milk shark, Rhizoprionodon acutus (Ruppell 1837)

Abstract The complete mitogenome sequence of the milk shark, of which Rhizoprionodon acutus was determined using long PCR. The genome was 16,693 bp in length and it contained 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and 1 D-loop region. The overall base composition of the heavy strand is A (31.63%), C (23.91%), T (31.38%), and G (13.08%). However, the base composition of A (31.38%), C (13.08%), T (31.63%), and G (23.91%) was in the light strand. Except for that COXI began with GTG, all the protein initiation codons were ATG. What’s more, all the protein termination codons were TAA, in addition to ND2, ND3, and Cytb ended with TAG, COXII and ND4 finished only with T, and ND6 with AGG. Moreover, based on thirteen concatenated PCGs nucleotide datasets, the phylogenetic analysis showed high value support for the following sister clade among the two genera (Rhizoprionodon acutus, Rhizoprionodon; Scoliodon macrorhynchos and Scoliodon laticaudus, Scoliodon).
Mucoepidermoid carcinoma on dorsum of tongue: An unusual presentation in Nigerian patient

The aim of this study was to report an unusual presentation of mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC) on the dorsum of tongue and to add to the body of knowledge on the various sites of occurrence of the lesion. MEC is a malignant, locally invasive tumor of salivary glands composed of varying proportions of mucussecreting and squamous cells, with the presence of intermediate cell differentiation between these other two cell types. More than half of reported cases involve major salivary glands and it is seen rarely on the dorsum of tongue. We present an unusual case of a low-grade MEC on the dorsum of tongue of a 40-year-old man. Discussion on clinical and microscopic types and immunohistochemical features of this tumor is presented in relation to pertinent literature. Biologic behavior and clinical manifestations of MEC usually correlate with its histological grade, which are required for appropriate treatment.
Performance targets, path dependence, and policy adoption: evidence from the adoption of pollutant emission control policies in Chinese provinces

Abstract Although performance targets imposed by high levels of governments are an important vertical result-oriented influence on local governments’ policy adoption, no studies have examined the impacts of performance targets on policy processes. Using the adoption of atmospheric pollutant emission standards by Chinese provinces in the 2000 to 2015 period, this study runs spatial autoregression models to investigate the effects of mandatory performance targets on environmental policy adoption processes in China. The results show that top-down performance targets can drive the adoption of atmospheric pollutant emission standards in Chinese provinces. Furthermore, the influence of vertical environmental performance targets on the adoption of local atmospheric pollutant emission standards is stronger in Chinese provinces that have adopted more similar standards in the previous period. The results show that top-down performance management shapes the policy adoption processes and policy adoption of Chinese provinces under vertical result-oriented performance target pressure is path-dependent.
Evaluating Water- and Health-related Development Projects: A Cross-project and Micro-based Approach

Abstract We present a micro-based approach to evaluate the effect of water- and health-related development projects which complements established evaluation methods. We collect information from 1.8 million individuals from DHS clusters (Demographic and Health Surveys) in 38 developing economies between 1986 and 2017. We combine cluster information with over 14,000 sub-national projects from the World Bank. We then investigate the impact of the projects employing fixed effects estimation techniques. Our findings indicate that the time to gather water and child mortality tend to decrease when projects are realised. The quality of drinking water and sanitation facilities are also positively affected by projects. Our data allow us to account for cluster heterogeneity, which is an important extension to the cross-country literature. Various robustness checks support our findings.
No More Heart Disease— Addressing Major Modifiable Risk Factors in Type 2 Diabetes

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among people with type 2 diabetes, yet much of the population remains unaware of the risk. People with diabetes are two to four times more likely to develop CVD due to a variety of risk factors. Large studies have shown that 85–90 % of patients with CVD have one or more of the traditional modifiable risk factors. Important modifiable risk factors include obesity, physical exercise, nutritional factors, alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking, vitamin D, psychosocial factors, dyslipidemia, hypertension, albuminuria, and dysglycemia. This article will review the impact that each of these modifiable factors has on CVD risk. The importance of aspirin therapy will also be addressed in light of the results of a number of studies that failed to demonstrate a convincing cardioprotective benefit of low-dose aspirin in patients with type 2 diabetes. Gene polymorphisms are also emerging as important contributors to CVD development, but will not be addressed in this article.
Institutions and the Financial Development–Economic Growth Nexus in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Using a sample splitting approach that does not impose an exogenous quadratic term, we examine the effect of financial development on economic growth in sub‐Saharan Africa by allowing the link to be mediated by the level of institutions. Our findings reveal a disproportionate growth‐enhancing effect of finance, given countries’ distinct level of institutional quality. More specifically, when the International Country Risk Guide‐based measure of institutions is used as the threshold variable, below the optimal level of institutional quality, financial development does not significantly promote economic growth. For countries with institutional quality above the threshold, higher finance is associated with growth. However, when institutions are measured by World Governance Indicators proxy, we find a significant effect of financial development, irrespective of whether a country is below or above the threshold. Interestingly, the growth‐enhancing effect of finance is greater for low‐institution countries relative to high‐institution countries. Thus, through its ability to provide some crucial roles, the well‐developed financial sector may also perform the function of sound institutions in influencing economic growth.
Privacy-Preserving Distributed Online Optimization Over Unbalanced Digraphs via Subgradient Rescaling

In this article, we investigate a distributed online constrained optimization problem with differential privacy where the network is modeled by an unbalanced digraph with a row-stochastic adjacency matrix. To address such a problem, a distributed differentially private algorithm without introducing a trusted third-party is proposed to preserve the privacy of the participating nodes. Under mild conditions, we show that the proposed algorithm attains an <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(\log T)$</tex-math></inline-formula> expected regret bound for strongly convex local cost functions, where <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T$</tex-math></inline-formula> is the time horizon. Moreover, we remove the need for knowing the time horizon <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T$</tex-math></inline-formula> in advance by adopting doubling trick scheme, and derive an <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(\sqrt{T})$</tex-math></inline-formula> expected regret bound for general convex local cost functions. Our results coincide with the best theoretical regrets that can be achieved in the state-of-the-art algorithms. Finally, simulation results are conducted to validate the efficiency of our proposed algorithm.
Chances and challenges of machine learning based disease classification in genetic association studies illustrated on age-related macular degeneration

Imaging technology and machine learning algorithms for disease classification set the stage for high-throughput phenotyping and promising new avenues for genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Despite emerging algorithms, there has been no successful application in GWAS so far. We established machine learning based disease classification in genetic association analysis as a misclassification problem. To evaluate chances and challenges, we performed a GWAS based on automated classification of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in UK Biobank (images from 135,500 eyes; 68,400 persons). We quantified misclassification of automatically derived AMD in internal validation data (images from 4,001 eyes; 2,013 persons) and developed a maximum likelihood approach (MLA) to account for it when estimating genetic association. We demonstrate that our MLA guards against bias and artefacts in simulation studies. By combining a GWAS on automatically derived AMD classification and our MLA in UK Biobank data, we were able to dissect true association (ARMS2/HTRA1, CFH) from artefacts (near HERC2) and to identify eye color as relevant source of misclassification. On this example of AMD, we are able to provide a proof-of-concept that a GWAS using machine learning derived disease classification yields relevant results and that misclassification needs to be considered in the analysis. These findings generalize to other phenotypes and also emphasize the utility of genetic data for understanding misclassification structure of machine learning algorithms.
Influence of temperature on blackthorn (Prunus spinosa L.) phenophases in spring season

Phenology is the study of periodic biologic changes that plants are going through, under the influence of environmental factors, especially temperature. The present paper evaluates the behaviour of Prunus spinosa L. genotypes under the fluctuations of climatic factors by calculating the average time elapsed from bud-breaking to blooming, the average time elapsed between different phenophases, the heat demand and the chilling requirement. The data obtained show that the onset of spring season phenological phases is significantly speeded-up by temperatures increase and provides useful information on temperature influence on phenologic phased triggering and better understanding of temperature influence on phenology in Prunus spinosa L. genotypes in Oltenia region of Romania.
Templated Growth of Metastable Polymorphs on Amorphous Substrates with Seed Layers

the two. The resulting metastable WZ-MnTe polymorph exhibits a wide band gap of 2.7 eV and a low hole density of 10 12 cm -3 , relevant to optoelectronic applications. These properties are in sharp contrast to the narrow-bandgap highly-doped NC-MnTe with 1.3 eV band gap and 10 19 cm -3 hole density. The difference in hole density is due to the calculated difference in the formation energy of manganese vacancy acceptor defects. Overall, these results suggest that templated growth on amorphous substrates with seed layers can be used to synthesize metastable polymorphs of other materials, without the need for expensive single crystal substrates.
Direction and Destination Pattern of Indian Mango & Mango Pulp’s Exports

This study explores growth dimensions, instability, sources of growth and variability of mango and mango pulp exports to major importing countries. The secondary data on volume and value of mango and mango pulp exports from India collected for 30 years from the year 1987-2016 were analyzed using Markov Chain and accordingly the future exports were forecasted. UAE and Kuwait for fresh mango and Saudi Arabia, UAE and Netherland for mango pulp were the most stable markets. It was predicted that quantum of mango export to countries Viz; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UK are expected to increase while quantity exported to UAE, Bangladesh and other countries are expected to decline from the year 2016-17. On the other hand, for mango pulp, forecasting revealed that in terms of quantity its export to UK, UAE, Netherland and USA would rise and quantity exported to Saudi Arabia, YAR and other countries would decline. A need for more concentration on export promotion to tap the potential and strengthening of existing processing units by providing access to information on modern technology, packaging, markets, food laws and hygiene requirements of different market are suggestions emerged from the study.
School-, Classroom-, and Dyadic-Level Experiences: A Literature Review of Their Relationship With Students’ Executive Functioning Development

Executive functioning (EF) is key to students’ school and lifelong success and reflects both genetic predisposition and sensitivity to negative and positive experiences. Yet there is less available literature investigating the relationship between typical experiences within school environments and student EF development. This is unfortunate, as school environments are potentially more malleable than home- or community-based factors. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present a systematic review of the literature from 2000 to 2017 to understand how school-, classroom-, and dyadic-level (teacher–student and peer–student) experiences relate to student EF development. Across 20 studies, we found that classroom emotional support and teacher–student conflict were the most consistent predictors of student EF development, with emerging support for school-level and peer-level variables. We discuss findings in relation to school-based inhibitors and facilitators of student EF and provide implications for education research and practice.
PERSONALITY TRAITS, MOTIVATIONAL ORIENTATIONS AND SPEAKING ACHIEVEMENT IN THE EFL CONTEXT

Despite the fact that a number of studies have shown a relationship between personality traits (extrovert and introvert) with oral performance in the EFL setting, the link between extrovert and introvert personality, EFL motivational orientations, and speaking achievement is very rare. Therefore, this present study aims to find what differences are truly existed between extrovert and introvert personality regarding to their motivational orientations and speaking achievement, and how extrovert and introvert personality are inter-correlated with EFL motivational orientations and speaking achievement. In order to identify the students personality, the researcher used The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and Self-Report Questionnaire to identify the students motivational orientations. The samples of this study are 40 students in XII grade of Senior High School in East Lampung, Indonesia. The data is further analyzed by using Independent samples T-test and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient. The results show that there is no significant difference between extrovert and introvert personality in both their motivational orientations and speaking achievement. Moreover, it is also found that there is a combination of motivational orientations that co-exists in the extrovert personality. However, both personality traits and motivational orientations are not supposed to be a strong predictor of students speaking achievement. Therefore, this present study is largely extended to give a plausible explanation to the field under investigation.DOI: 10.24071/ijiet.2020. 040109
Investigation of some fixed point theorems in hyperbolic spaces for a three step iteration process

In the present paper, we investigate the convergence, equivalence of convergence, rate of convergence and data dependence results using a three step iteration process for mappings satisfying certain contractive condition in hyperbolic spaces. Also we give non-trivial examples for the rate of convergence and data dependence results to show effciency of three step iteration process. The results obtained in this paper may be interpreted as a refinement and improvement of the previously known results.
Plume ‐Tree Structure Induced by Low‐Viscosity Layers in the Upper Mantle

Previous seismological results and geodynamic modeling showed that mantle plumes have thin tails. However, the latest geophysical observations reveal the presence of broad and bifurcate plumes in the lower and upper mantle, providing a new challenge to further understand the evolution of plume morphology. Here, developing 3‐D numerical models, we demonstrate that a plume shaped like a tree, derived from the mantle transition zone, branches up to surface volcanoes due to the combined influence of weak layers in the asthenosphere and the mantle transition zone. Clusters of mantle plumes likely explain the simultaneous occurrence of multiple subparallel hot spot tracks in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Meanwhile, the mantle plume wandering at a rate of ~1.5 cm/year in the upper mantle without a strong mantle wind provides a new mechanism for hot spot motions. Thus, our model represents a significant advance for linking plume studies in seismology, geochemistry, and plate reconstruction.
Embedding Adaptation Levels within Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Developing Programming Skills and Improving Learning Efficiency

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) represent the virtual learning environment that provides learning needs, adapts to the characteristics of learners according to their cognitive and behavioral aspects, to reach desired learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of embedding some adaptation levels within intelligent tutoring systems on developing Object-Oriented Programming skills (OOP), as well as on learning efficiency for students of the computer science department, Faculty of Science and Arts at Qassem University. In this context, the author developed an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) that provides multiple levels of adaptation (Learner level, links level) to support automatic adaptation to each of the students' characteristics and investigate the effectiveness of the system on dependent variables. The random sample consisted of (n=44) students. Those students were divided into two similar groups, Experimental an (ITS), and Control (face-to-face, traditional). The findings revealed that there was a noticeable improvement in the students' performance for the experimental group than the control group how used face-to-face method for the programming skills and learning efficiency.
Pattern of hand injuries reported in a tertiary care setting of North India

Background: Hand injuries are very common in this industrialized world. Significant number of patients report every day to the emergency department with various patterns of hand injuries. It is important to understand these patterns in order to plan proper management and develop safety protocols aimed at preventing these injuries. Methods: The present cross sectional study was conducted among 150 patients presenting with Open hand injuries, in the OPD and emergency of Post Graduate Department of Orthopaedics, Government Medical College, Jammu over a period of one year from January 2010 to December 2010. Results: Out of 150 cases 131(87.33%) were males and 19 (12.67%) were females. The commonest age group affected was 21-30 years (34%) followed by 11-20 years (23%). Maximum injuries 90 (60%) occurred in the time interval from 4 pm to midnight. Majority of patients 67 (45%) sustained injury while at work. Occupation-wise 37 (25%) patients were unskilled workers, mainly laborers, 35 (23%) were farmers, while the remainder belonged to various other professions. In this series machine injuries, assault and road traffic accidents accounted for most injuries, representing 61 (41%), 25 (17%) and 16 (11%) patients respectively. Traumatic amputation (30%) was the most common injury. The index (21%) and middle (21%) fingers were involved more commonly. Tendon injuries (31%) were more frequent than compound fractures (23%). Conclusions: Hand trauma predominantly affects young males who have occupational exposure to different machines. A proper understanding of the pattern of injury will help in better management.
Metal organic frameworks as a compatible reinforcement in a biopolymer bone scaffold

The insufficient mechanical strength and slow degradation rate of poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) limit its applications in bone repair. In this study, zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8), one typical metal organic framework, was introduced into a laser-sintered PLLA scaffold. The results showed that the ZIF-8 formed favorable interface bonding with PLLA due to its inherent hydrophobicity and abundant organic ligands. Meanwhile, it served as an efficient nucleating site and increased the crystallinity of PLLA. Thus, the tensile and compressive strength was improved by 36.9% and 85.6%, respectively. On the other hand, ZIF-8 was biodegradable and its degradation rate would speed up in an acid environment caused by the degradation of PLLA. In this condition, numerous cavities resulting from the degradation of ZIF-8 on the scaffold surface promoted the invasion of the immersion solution, which considerably enhanced the degradation rate. Besides, ZIF-8 released nutrient Zn element during degradation, which favored cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation. It was suggested that the scaffold showed great potential as a candidate for bone implantation.