Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weekly paclitaxel, carboplatin, cetuximab (PCC), and cetuximab, docetaxel, cisplatin, and fluorouracil (C-TPF), followed by risk-based local therapy in previously untreated, locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (LAHNSCC).

6001 Background: We designed a randomized phase II trial to determine the efficacy of two induction chemotherapy (ICT) cetuximab (C) containing regimens with demonstrated efficacy and acceptable toxicity in previously untreated LAHNSCC. ICT was followed by risk-based definitive local therapy, where risk was defined by Human Papillomavirus (HPV) status and stage and stratification by smoking status (low vs intermediate/high). Primary endpoint was 2-year progression free survival (2yr PFS). Methods: 136 patients (pts) median age 58 years, 84% males, 89% caucasian, 66% ECOG PS 0, 40% never smokers, with stage IV (40% T3-4, 98% N2b-c/N3), 77% HPV-positive, HNSCC (oropharynx 79%, others 21%) were randomized 1:1 to receive PCC [paclitaxel 135 mg/m2, carboplatin AUC 2 weekly (wy) and C 400 mg/m2 week (w) 1 then 250 mg/m2 wy] for 6 weeks or C-TPF [docetaxel 75 mg/m2, cisplatin 100 mg/m2 day (d) 1, fluorouracil 700 mg/m2 24-hr infusion d 1-4 every 3 w and C 400 mg/m2 w 1 then 250 mg/m2 wy] for 9 weeks. Results: As.
Outcomes of surgical management of liver trauma at LUMHS Jamshoro

Background: Mortality from liver trauma remains high despite surgical advancements. The objective of this study was to determine the outcomes of surgical management of liver trauma at LUMHS Jamshoro. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study using non-probability convenient sampling technique was done at department of surgery LUMHS Jamshoro for 18 months. Patients between 14 to 50 years with blunt hepatic trauma presenting to the E.R. within 04 hours of incident were included and hepatic trauma patients managed conservatively, having multiple trauma and hemo-dynamically stable were excluded. SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis with mean and SD reported for qualitative and frequency and percentages for quantitative variables. Chi-square test was applied keeping p-value of < 0.05 as statistically significant. Results: From 136 patients with mean age of 32.33±1.23 years, 120 (88%) were male. 122 (89.7%) were admitted due to blunt trauma and 14 (10.3%) due to penetrating trauma. Peri-hepatic packing was performed in 116 (85.2%) and suture hepatorrhaphy in 20 (14.8%). Intra-abdominal sepsis was seen in 41 (30%) of patients followed by recurrent hemorrhage in 33 (24%) while 30 (22%) of patients died. Substantial differences (p < 0.001) were observed in terms of surgical technique and each of the complication i.e. sepsis, bile leak and recurrent hemorrhage among alive patients Conclusions: The most common post-operative complication was intra-abdominal sepsis followed by recurrent haemorrhage and bile leak. Significant mortality was observed in between type of complication as well as surgical technique.
The Role of Religion on Female Labor Supply: Evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates association between religion and female labor market outcomes using new micro-level data on two distinct Muslim denominations in Turkey: Sunni and Alevi Muslims. We find a positive and significant effect of being an Alevi Muslim on female labor force participation and employment probability compared to a Sunni Muslim, whereas there are no significant differences in male labor market outcomes between the two denominations. We provide evidence that Alevi Muslims have more gender-equal views regarding the role of women in the labor market. Alevi women are also more likely to have at least middle school or high school degree, prefer secular education over religious education for their sons and daughters, and have fewer children. We argue that differences in views on gender roles between the two denominations along with Alevis’ support for secular education drive the
Non-linear Computation Between Neighboring Dendritic Hotspots in Rat CA1 Hippocampal Interneurons

Dendritic hotspots have been shown to play a determining role as local activity foci during sensory information coding and memory formation in cortical neurons in vivo. Here we aim to reveal the characteristics of co-activating more dendritic hotspots themselves within a dynamic time window. Using electrical stimulation and patterned two-photon uncaging for the coincident activation of two neighboring dendritic hotspots in rat hippocampal CA1 interneurons, the evoked local dendritic Ca2+ and the associated excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) summed supralinearly. Between active hotspots, supralinearity was present in a relatively broad temporal (∼10 ms) and spatial (∼30 µm) window, mediated by NMDA receptors. Though at larger inter-hotspot distances (>30 µm) supralinear summation of EPSPs was replaced by sublinear integration, the summation of dendritic Ca2+ responses remained supralinear. The inter-hotspot integration represents a novel signal integration state, extending the interaction distance between dendritic inputs, and allowing long-range coincidence detection.
Effect of clonidine as an adjuvant to levobupivacainein epidural anesthesia

Results: The onset of sensory (7.8±1.7mins) and motor blockade (10.9±1.9mins) was significantly faster in clonidine group. Duration of anaesthesia and duration of analgesia was prolonged in group LC (234.5±16.1mins, 412.8±48.3mins) compared to group L (173.56±12.78 min, 269.2±24.2mins) which was statistically significant (p<0.05). Similarly clonidine group had less VAS score compared to control group. There was no significant change in the haemodynamic variables between the two groups. Hypotension and bradycardia was found more in clonidine group compared to the control group. Conclusion: Clonidine as an adjuvant to levobupivacaine prolongs the post-operative analgesia and the duration of anaesthesia for infraumbilical surgeries.
Delay-robust stabilization of an n+m hyperbolic PDE-ODE system

In this paper, we study the problem of stabilizing a linear ordinary differential equation through a system of an n+m (hetero-directional) coupled hyperbolic equations in the actuating path. The method relies on the use of a backstepping transform to construct a first feedback to tackle in-domain couplings present in the PDE system and then on a predictive tracking controller used to stabilize the ODE. The proposed control law is robust with respect to small delays in the control signal.
Factors Influencing Computer Engineering Student Success

In this paper, we analyzed 14,280 student-semester entries from 3,005 undergraduate computer engineering students, enrolled at a minority serving institution over 10 years, to investigate contextually relevant factors of student academic success. We highlighted the change in student demographic and performance over the 10 years. We also examined the relation of student semester Grade Point Average (GPA) with the following factors: living on campus or off campus, being enrolled part-time or full-time, ethnicity, gender, being first-generation college student, financial need, and transfer status. When appropriate, we also considered the role of ethnicity within each of the factors. In addition to statistical tests (t-test, ANOVA, Tukey HSD, and Games-Howell) to compare the average semester GPAs, we also calculated the effect size in the cases where the difference in GPA was significant to demonstrate the effect of the factor on students’ semester GPA.
Breast Feeding Practices In Rural And Urban Communities In A Hilly District Of North India

Research question: What are the breast feeding practices in urban and rural communities of a hilly district? Objectives: 1. To study breast feeding practices. 2. To find out the influence of motherâ€™s education on these practices. Study Design: Cross-sectional Setting: Urban and Rural Participants: Mothers of under 3 years children Sample size: 994 subjects(489 from urban and 505 from rural areas) Study variables: Prelacteal feed, initiation of breast feeding, complimentary feed introduction, continued breast feeding, material literacy, urban and rural subjects. Statistical analysis: Proportions and chi-square test. Results: A high exclusive breast feeding rate was observed which was 0.74 in urban and 0.72 in rural children less than 4 months of age. Timely complementary feeding rate was 0.84 and 0.70 in urban and rural areas respectively. Continued breast feeding rates at 1 and 2 years were 0.44 to 0.65 and 0.15 to 0.36 in urban and rural areas respectively.
Epilepsy Seizure Detection using Non-linear and DWT-based Features

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder causing recurrent seizures in patients. The analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals can lead to the detection of epileptic seizures. But due to immensely non-linear and non-stationary nature of EEG, it is very tedious to inspect and interpret these signals visually. Therefore, methods such as discrete wavelet transform (DWT), and non-linear features are used for automated detection of epilepsy from EEG signals. These methods represent discontinuities, repeated patterns and complexities in EEG signals much effectively and have very high discrimination ability to differentiate EEG segments into normal, interictal and ictal classes. In this work, we formed various feature sets using combination of DWT statistical features and non-linear features such as entropies and fractal dimension. These feature sets were used to train a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier and various performance parameters were evaluated. One of the feature sets resulted in an overall accuracy of 99.7% and thereby the proposed technique emerged as an effective automatic seizure monitoring software.
Determinants of Modern Contraceptive Uptake among Women in Peri-Urban Communities of Port Harcourt City, Nigeria.

Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the determinants of contraceptive uptake among women of reproductive age in semi-urban communities of Rivers State, Nigeria. The information will be useful in reordering priorities and strategies for family planning interventions in the state. Study Design: The study was a cross sectional, household-based study, employing a cluster sampling technique proportionate to size, to recruit eligible participants. Study Location: The study was carried out in September 2013 in five contiguous communities located at the fringes of the Port Harcourt city. Methodology: Anonymous questionnaires were administered to 772 women of reproductive age normally resident in these five communities. Visitors were excluded. The data was analysed using Original Research Article Tobin-West et al.; BJMMR, 17(1): 1-10, 2016; Article no.BJMMR. 27655 2 SPSS version 20 software package. The Chi-square test was performed to determine the association between contraceptive use and demographic and socioeconomic variables, while Logistic regression was used to identify determinants of contraceptive uptake. The level of statistical significance was set at p= . 05. Results: A total of 772 women aged (15-49) years participated in the study and 731 (94.7%) knew about modern contraceptives and their benefits. Young age (15-34 years old), (χ 2 = 12.7, df = 3, p= .01) and being single, (χ 2 =16.270, df=3, p < .01) were significantly associated with contraceptive usage. Younger women had six times higher odds of contraceptive usage than older women; [O.R (95% C. I) = 5.97 (1.56-22.90) and 5.96 (1.63 -21.71)], and women with contraceptive knowledge had 19% higher odds of usage than contraceptive naïve women [O.R (95% C. I) = 0.19 (0.090.40)]. Conclusion: This study underscores the importance of young age and knowledge about contraceptives in promoting its acceptance among women. We therefore advocate for an early introduction of curriculum-based family planning education in schools, local media campaigns and peer education to create more awareness about contraceptives.
Technology-Enhanced Teaching: A Technology Acceptance Model to Study Teachers’ Intentions to Use Digital Games in the Classroom

This research to practice paper uses a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explore the factors that affect teachers’ intentions to use digital educational games in the classroom. Research shows that using computers and other digital technologies like digital games is one way to influence young people’s career aspirations and improve their digital literacy. This is particularly important as the world of work is changing and emerging jobs becoming more intensive in their use of digital technologies. In the developing world and in particular Nigeria, there have been calls to improve the digital literacy skills of young people to help them make informed career choices, and fully participate effectively and equally in the digital world. However, many of the computing and digital technology education initiatives have not produced the positive results intended. The lack of awareness, readiness and buy-in of the relevant stakeholders are some of the factors that has been identified as a barrier here. For example, for computing and digital technology-based projects in schools, the success largely depends on the support and attitude of teachers. As one of the major stakeholders in the classroom, teachers need to be consulted in decisions that affect the way they deliver their lessons; especially when novel ideas and approaches that challenge tradition are introduced. It is therefore important to consider their acceptance or otherwise of digital games in the classroom. A Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was modified to include constructs previously identified by teachers that potentially influence their intention to use digital games in the classroom. The extended TAM was developed into a questionnaire and tested with 220 teachers in Nigeria. Analyses of the results show that syllabus connectedness, perceived usefulness and self-efficacy are significant predictors of the intention of teachers to adopt digital game-based learning in the classroom. Furthermore, the teachers’ demographics including experience of teaching, age and gender all mediated the intention of the teachers to use digital game-based learning. The results and findings present recommendations for school leaders and developers of digital educational games. The practical insights from this are also important here and helpful for guiding the deployment of such games particularly in areas where such technological interventions have not been used before.
“I feel like I've found where I belong.” Interviews with Black engineering students who change majors

This Research Work in Progress paper reports on Year 1 of a three-year mixed-methods study to identify institutional factors that promote increased retention of Black students in engineering curricula and to determine causes of their attrition. The paper outlines preliminary findings from 14 interviews of students who left computer, electrical, or mechanical engineering curricula. The students cited poor advising, academic challenges for which they were unprepared, lack of knowledge about their chosen major, financial and personal difficulties, perceived poor fit in the major, and issues around being a first-generation college student as important factors in deciding to change their major. They identified their race as an important factor in their selection of a university and in their sense of belonging at the institution, but not in their choice of a major or their decision to change majors.
Minimum Age of Information in the Internet of Things With Non-Uniform Status Packet Sizes

In this paper, a real-time Internet of Things (IoT) monitoring system is considered in which the IoT devices are scheduled to sample associated underlying physical processes and send the status updates to a common destination. In a real-world IoT, due to the possibly different dynamics of each physical process, the sizes of the status updates for different devices are often different and each status update typically requires multiple transmission slots. By taking into account such multi-time slot transmissions with non-uniform sizes of the status updates under noisy channels, the problem of joint device scheduling and status sampling is studied in order to minimize the average age of information (AoI) at the destination. This stochastic problem is formulated as an infinite horizon average cost Markov decision process (MDP). The monotonicity of the value function of the MDP is characterized and then used to show that the optimal scheduling and sampling policy is threshold-based with respect to the AoI at each device. To overcome the curse of dimensionality, a low-complexity suboptimal policy is proposed through a semi-randomized base policy and linear approximated value functions. The proposed suboptimal policy is shown to exhibit a similar structure to the optimal policy, which provides a structural base for its effective performance. A structure-aware algorithm is then developed to obtain the suboptimal policy. The analytical results are further extended to the IoT monitoring system with random status update arrivals, for which, the optimal scheduling and sampling policy is also shown to be threshold-based with the AoI at each device. Simulation results illustrate the structures of the optimal policy and show a near-optimal AoI performance resulting from the proposed suboptimal solution approach.
Decoupling Unknown Input Observer for nonlinear quasi-LPV systems

In this paper, the problem of unknown input observer (UIO) design for nonlinear parameter varying (quasi- LPV) systems is investigated. Three main improvements of the existing UIO designs for LPV systems [11] are detailed. First, the parameter dependency of the UIO is not restricted to be the same as the one of the system, then the existing decoupling conditions are relaxed. Secondly, the class of considered systems is nonlinear which leads to the well-known quasi-LPV systems (i.e. the parameters are state dependent). This paper focuses on the case of parameters depending on unmeasured states. Finally, the proposed UIO considers the cases when only estimated time derivative of the parameters is available, and also unavailable time derivative and estimation. For these cases, the Disturbance-to-Error Stability (DES) is considered with DES-gain optimization. Examples are provided to illustrate the performances of the proposed UIO designs and highlight the improvements brought to existing ones.
Microstrip to Ridge Empty Substrate-Integrated Waveguide Transition for Broadband Microwave Applications

The empty substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) (ESIW) is an evolution of the SIW. Just as the SIW, the ESIW is of low cost and low profile, and can be integrated into a printed circuit board, but the losses in the ESIW are lower than in those in the SIW thanks to the removal of the dielectric material, which results in ESIW devices with performances close to those implemented with standard rectangular waveguides. In order to increase the operational (monomode) bandwidth of the rectangular waveguides, a metal ridge can be inserted (leading to the ridge waveguide). Extrapolating this idea to the ESIW, in this letter, a study of possible ridge ESIW (RESIW) geometries has been performed, and a novel transition from microstrip line to RESIW is proposed. In order to validate the performance of transition, a back-to-back prototype has been manufactured and measured.
Theory Analysis of Nonlinear Excitation of Second Harmonic THz Gyrotron for DNP-NMR

As an important parameter, start current reveals the excitation condition of cavity modes. Normally, the method of successive iterations with one mode associated in the calculation is used to get the start current, which just reflects the self-excitation conditions in the presence of single mode. Nevertheless, in many cases, the prior-excited mode may affect the start current of the subsequent ones. In this article, we re-derived electron motion equations with two modes involved in the calculation and calculated the start current numerically based on those equations. We analyzed start currents of operation mode TE26+ and parasitic modes of a 394-GHz gyrotron with the two methods. In the calculation using the conventional method, TE26+ satisfies self-excitation condition while TE26− does not. In the calculation using the latter method, the start current of TE26− decreases under the influence of TE26+. This nonlinear oscillation of TE26− is further observed in time domain multimode simulation. In practical application, the beam velocity spread, ohmic loss, and high-frequency loss are inevitable. We studied their effects on mode interaction and then optimized the operation parameters. When the equivalent conductivity is $1.7e^{7}~\text {s/m}$ and beam velocity spread is 0.03, the optimized output power is 149.2 W.
Convex Combination of Two Adaptive Filters with Normalized Median Wilcoxon Approach

Adaptive system identification is an active area of research in the field of signal processing due to the fact that it updates the unknown parameter of the filter using a suitable adaptive algorithm. Due to great advancements in digital signal processors in terms of high speed and low power consumption, adaptive algorithms are able to calculate the parameters of interest very fast with reduced complexity. Taking one of the practical aspect of adaptive algorithm such as convergence speed, many algorithms have been found in the literature that quickly converge to some steady state value. But presence of outliers in the data limit the performance of these algorithms. Though minimum Wilcoxon norm [1] has been proposed to overcome the effect of outliers, yet the speed of convergence can still be improved. A convex combination of two adaptive filters have been taken into account to tackle the above limitation. Results show that convex combination of filters work very efficiently against conventional adaptive algorithms, giving faster convergence. But in the presence of outliers its effectiveness is not up to the mark. A normalized median based approach is proposed, which is applied along with the convex combination in order to improve the performance. Simulation results defend the above statement and verify the authenticity of the research.
Encrypted State Estimation in Networked Control Systems

In this paper, we propose a distributed state observer in which the data of measurements and state estimates are protected by homomorphic cryptosystem. The proposed observer network is composed of local observers, where each of them utilizes encrypted local measurement, encryption of plant input, and encrypted estimates transmitted from its neighbors. All the operations in the network are performed on encrypted data without decryption, and the full state is recovered in every local observer as an encrypted message. Assuming the characteristic polynomial and the minimal polynomial of the state matrix for the plant are the same, the parameters in the observers are chosen to be integers. This not only allows finitetime convergence for the state estimates, but also makes the encrypted dynamic observers operate for infinite time horizon.