Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bile Duct Strictures Caused by Solid Masses: MR in Differential Diagnosis and as a Prognostic Tool to Plan the Endoscopic Treatment

The aim of the study was to assess how realiable is differential diagnosis and prognosis for endoscopic treatment with MR signal characteristics as the qualitative parameter and magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) images in cases of bile duct obstructions caused by solid masses. Material and Methods. Retrospective study of MR and MRCP images in 80 patients (mean age 58 ys) was conducted. Mean signal intensity ratio (SIR) from planar MR images and MRCP linear measurements were compared between benign and malignant lesions and in groups including the size and number of stents placed during ERCP (< 10 F <) in 51 cases in which ERCP was performed. Results. Significantly higher SIR values were encountered in malignant lesions in T2W images (r = 0,0003) and STIR T2W images (r = 0,0002). Malignant lesions were characterised by longer strictures (r = 0,0071) and greater proximal biliary duct dilatation (r = 0,0024). High significance for predicting ERCP conditions was found with mean SIR in STIR T2W images and stricture length. Conclusion. Probability of malignancy of solid lesions obstructing biliary duct increased with higher SIR in T2W images and with longer strictures. Passing the stricture during ERCP treatment was easier and more probable in cases of shorter strictures caused by lesions with higher SIR in STIR T2W images.
Modeling Spatial Structure of Wireless Communication Networks

While modeling and analysis of network topology has been an active area of research in fixed networks, much less work has been done towards realistic modeling of wireless networks. The graph- based approach that has served as solid foundation for network science in the fixed domain is not natural for wireless communication networks, since their performance inherently depends on the spatial relationships between nodes. In this paper we apply techniques from spatial statistics literature to develop models of the spatial structure of the network for a variety of wireless network types. In particular, we construct models of television and radio transmitter distributions that have applications in, for example, cognitive wireless network applications. We use a stochastic approach based on fitting parametric location models to empirical data. Our results indicate that the so-called Geyer saturation model can accurately reproduce the spatial structure of a large variety of wireless network types, arising from both planned or chaotic deployments. The resulting models can be used in simulations or as basis of analytical calculations of different network properties, and we believe that the presented methodology can serve as a solid foundation for the emerging network science of wireless communication networks.
The effects of quantitative gait assessment and botulinum toxin a on musculoskeletal surgery in children with cerebral palsy.

BACKGROUND The limits of nonoperative treatment for children with cerebral palsy, including physical therapy and orthotics, commonly lead to orthopaedic surgical intervention. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the influence of gait analysis and botulinum toxin type-A injections on the timing, prevalence, and frequency of orthopaedic surgery. METHODS We performed a retrospective review of 424 children with cerebral palsy who had been born between 1976 and 1994. The children were divided into three groups: Group 1 comprised 122 patients who were managed throughout the entire study period according to best-practice guidelines in orthopaedics, Group 2 comprised 170 patients who were similarly managed but with input from gait analysis, and Group 3 comprised 132 patients who had gait analysis and also received botulinum toxin type-A injections. We analyzed the prevalence of orthopaedic surgical procedures at different ages (three to nine years) and the time to the first surgical procedure. RESULTS The progression to orthopaedic surgery was significantly different among the three groups (p < 0.0001). The proportion of patients who had undergone at least one surgical procedure by the age of seven years was 52% (sixty-four of 122) for Group 1, 27% (forty-six of 170) for Group 2, and 10% (thirteen of 132) for Group 3. There was a delay in surgery in Group 2 as compared with Group 1 (p < 0.00001 at seven, eight, and nine years of age) and a significant decrease in the prevalence of orthopaedic surgical procedures for Group 3 as compared with Group 1 (p < 0.00001 at four to eight years of age) and Group 2 (p < 0.0025 at four to nine years of age). CONCLUSIONS In the treatment of children who have cerebral palsy, the introduction of gait analysis increases the age of the first orthopaedic surgical procedure and botulinum toxin type-A treatment delays and reduces the frequency of surgical procedures.
What you jointly know determines how you act: strategic interactions in prediction markets

The primary goal of a prediction market is to elicit and aggregate information about some future event of interest. How well this goal is achieved depends on the behavior of self-interested market participants, which are crucially influenced by not only their private information but also their knowledge of others' private information, in other words, the information structure of market participants. In this paper, we model a prediction market using the now-classic logarithmic market scoring rule (LMSR) market maker as an extensive-form Bayesian game and aim to understand and characterize the game-theoretic equilibria of the market for different information structures. Prior work has shown that when participants' information is independent conditioned on the realized outcome of the event, the only type of equilibria in this setting has every participant race to honestly reveal their private information as soon as possible, which is the most desirable outcome for the market's goal of information aggregation. This paper considers the remaining two classes of information structures: participants' information being unconditionally independent (the I game) and participants' information being both conditionally and unconditionally dependent (the D game). We characterize the unique family of equilibria for the I game with finite number of participants and finite stages. At any equilibrium in this family, if player i's last stage of participation in the market is after player j's, player i only reveals his information after player j's last stage of participation. This suggests that players race to delay revealing their information, which is probably the least desirable outcome for the market's goal. We consider a special case of the D game and cast insights on possible equilibria if one exists.
SHARING MEANS CARING ? HOSTS ’ PRICE REACTIONS TO RATING VISIBILITY Research in Progress

We empirically investigate how hosts on Airbnb, a popular peer-to-peer website for fee-based sharing of under-utilized space, adjust their prices once their offering gets a visible star rating for the first time. We use data for over 14,000 offerings from Airbnb which we collected for New York City. Our findings indicate that hosts whose offerings achieve star rating visibility significantly increase their prices by an average of 2.69 € more than hosts with comparable offerings who do not experience this rating visibility during the time of observation. Out of all offerings who achieve rating visibility, we identify the upper quartile of hosts to be the main driver of this price increase, whereas the first 75% percent show only a marginal price reaction. These results can serve as a first step towards understanding the motivation of people to provide assets to the sharing economy.
Genetic watermarking based on texture analysis in DCT domain

In this paper, we propose a new approach for digital image watermarking in DCT domain. A texture analysis is applied on each 8x8 DCT blocks in order to classify the block as texture or non-texture region. The genetic algorithms (GAs) are then performed to find out the optimal parameters for watermark embedding, independently for each region type. The experimental results show that the proposed approach yields a watermark that is invisible to human eyes and robust to various image manipulations. The algorithm was also compared with the previous work, and our algorithm is superior for all test images.
Exact admission control for networks with a bounded delay service

To support the requirements for the transmission of continuous media, such as audio and video, multiservice packet-switching networks must provide service guarantees to connections, including guarantees on throughput, network delays, and network delay variations. For the most demanding applications, the network must offer a service which provides deterministically bounded delay guarantees, referred to as "bounded delay service. " The admission control functions in a network with a bounded delay service require 'schedulability conditions' that detect violations of delay guarantees in a network switch. Exact schedulability conditions are presented for three packet scheduling methods: earliest-deadline-first (EDF), static-priority (SP), and a novel scheduling method, referred to as rotating-priority-queues (RPQ). By characterizing the worst-case traffic with general subadditive functions, the presented schedulability conditions can be applied to a large class of traffic models. Examples, which include actual MPEG video traces, are presented to demonstrate the trade-offs involved in selecting a packet scheduling method for a bounded delay service.
Entrance Region Flow Heat Transfer in Concentric Annuli with Rotating Inner Wall for Bingham Fluid

A finite difference analysis of the entrance region flow heat transfer of Bingham fluid in concentric annuli with rotating inner wall has been carried out. The analysis is made for simultaneously developing hydrodynamic and thermal boundary layer in concentric annuli with one wall being isothermal and other one being adiabatic. The inner cylinder is assumed to be rotating with a constant angular velocity and the outer cylinder being stationary. A finite difference analysis is used to obtain the velocity distributions, pressure drop and temperature variations along the radial direction. Computational results are obtained for various values of aspect ratio N, Bingham number B and Prandtl’s number. Comparison of the present results with the results available in literature for various particular cases has been done and found to be in agreement.
Different optineurin mutation pattern in primary open-angle glaucoma.

PURPOSE The optineurin gene (OPTN) is the second gene besides MYOC in which mutations have been identified to be associated with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). In this study, sequence alterations in the OPTN gene associated with POAG in Chinese subjects were investigated. METHODS All the coding exons of OPTN were screened, including the intron-exon boundaries, for sequence alterations in a Chinese sample of 119 sporadic patients with POAG and 126 unrelated control subjects by polymerase chain reaction-conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis and DNA sequencing. RESULTS Sixteen sequence changes were identified: 3 had been reported (T34T, M98K, and R545Q) and 13 were novel (T49T, E103D, V148V, P199P, T202T, H486R, IVS6-5T-->C, IVS6-10G-->A, IVS7+24G-->A, IVS8+20G-->A, IVS13+21C-->G, IVS15+10G-->A, and IVS15-48C-->A). Among them, only E103D, H486R, V148V, and IVS13+21C-->G were found exclusively in patients with POAG, whereas P199P, T202T, and IVS8+20G-->A were present only in control subjects. The genotype of IVS7+24G-->A showed a significant association with POAG (P = 0.02, Fisher two-tailed exact test) and with and increased cup-to-disc ratio in these patients (P = 0.005, Mann-Whitney test). CONCLUSIONS The findings in the current study enrich the evidence on the OPTN gene as a causative gene for POAG and suggest a different mutation pattern of OPTN in Chinese than in whites. The wide spectrum of putative mutations detected in this study suggests that both structural and functional disruptions in OPTN may contribute to the pathogenesis of glaucoma.
Ergonomics solutions for improving surgery performance of interlocking intramedullary nails

High ratio adverse events in surgery of interlocking intramedullary nails (IINs), especially in the distal locking operation have been the major issues troubling the surgeons. An ergonomics method which is the HTA method based on the SRK mode is proposed to improve the performance of IINs, and a seven-step procedure of this method is adopt to carry out the analysis. Two parameters which are the requirements of surgeon's cognitive levels and the safety of patients are selected as the index for analysis the IINs' performance. Then a computer assisted aiming device is designed by using this method to achieve the performance goals. The experimental results show that the proposed ergonomics solutions are feasible for these issues.
Canonical Correlation Inference for Mapping Abstract Scenes to Text

We describe a technique for structured prediction, based on canonical correlation analysis. Our learning algorithm finds two projections for the input and the output spaces that aim at projecting a given input and its correct output into points close to each other. We demonstrate our technique on a language-vision problem, namely the problem of giving a textual description to an "abstract scene".
3D printable light-responsive polymers

New photo-curable polymers for 3D printing are provided, exhibiting mechanical light-responsivity upon laser irradiation. Azobenzene moieties are employed both as dyes in the 3D printing process and as active groups providing the desired light responsivity. The incorporation of azobenzene units into polymeric matrices allows a reversible and controllable change of the Young's modulus of a crosslinked micrometric structure. Depending on the temperature of operation, laser irradiation induces either a decrease (photo-softening) or an increase (photo-hardening) of the Young's modulus. Such a behaviour can be spatially controlled in order to locally modify the mechanical features of 3D printed objects such as microcantilevers.
Correction: Geographic and Temporal Trends in the Molecular Epidemiology and Genetic Mechanisms of Transmitted HIV-1 Drug Resistance: An Individual-Patient- and Sequence-Level Meta-Analysis

Soo-Yon Rhee*, Jose Luis Blanco, Michael R. Jordan, Jonathan Taylor, Philippe Lemey, Vici Varghese, Raph L. Hamers, Silvia Bertagnolio, Tobias F. Rinke de Wit, Avelin F. Aghokeng, Jan Albert, Radko Avi, Santiago Avila-Rios, Pascal O. Bessong, James I. Brooks, Charles A. B. Boucher, Zabrina L. Brumme, Michael P. Busch, Hermann Bussmann, Marie-Laure Chaix, Bum Sik Chin, Toni T. D’Aquin, Cillian F. De Gascun, Anne Derache, Diane Descamps, Alaka K. Deshpande, Cyrille F. Djoko, Susan H. Eshleman, Herve Fleury, Pierre Frange, Seiichiro Fujisaki, P. Richard Harrigan, Junko Hattori, Africa Holguin, Gillian M. Hunt, Hiroshi Ichimura, Pontiano Kaleebu, David Katzenstein, Sasisopin Kiertiburanakul, JeromeH. Kim, Sung Soon Kim, Yanpeng Li, Irja Lutsar, LynnMorris, Nicaise Ndembi, Kee Peng NG, Ramesh S. Paranjape, Martine Peeters, Mario Poljak, Matt A. Price, Manon L. Ragonnet-Cronin, Gustavo Reyes-Terán, Morgane Rolland, Sunee Sirivichayakul, Davey M. Smith, Marcelo A. Soares, Vincent V. Soriano, Deogratius Ssemwanga, Maja Stanojevic, Mariane A. Stefani, Wataru Sugiura, Somnuek Sungkanuparph, Amilcar Tanuri, Kok Keng Tee, Hong-Ha M. Truong, David A. M. C. van de Vijver, Nicole Vidal, Chunfu Yang, Rongge Yang, Gonzalo Yebra, John P. A. Ioannidis, Anne-Mieke Vandamme, Robert W. Shafer
Verified enforcement of stateful information release policies

Many organizations specify information release policies to describe the terms under which sensitive information may be released to other organizations. This paper presents a new approach for ensuring that security-critical software correctly enforces its information release policy. Our approach has two parts. First, an information release policy is specified as a security automaton written in a new language called AIR. Second, we enforce an AIR policy by translating it into an API for programs written in LAIR, a core formalism for a functional programming language. LAIR uses a novel combination of dependent, affine, and singleton types to ensure that the API is used correctly. As a consequence we can certify that programs written in LAIR meet the requirements of the original AIR policy specification.
Breastfeeding as a specific value in women's lives: the experiences and decisions of breastfeeding women.

BACKGROUND Worldwide, breastfeeding is recommended for every woman who gives birth to a child. The propensity to breastfeed varies. There is considerable knowledge about the experiences and circumstances that affect the decision to breastfeed, but knowledge about what actually generates the decision's force still needs to be increased. The aim of this study was to gain knowledge of how the decision to breastfeed is initiated and upheld. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Eighteen women from three generations were interviewed, and the data were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. RESULTS Six categories were revealed: "Task," "Instinct," "Silent Impact," "Conflicts," "Job," and "Joy. " The women took on the Task of breastfeeding during pregnancy. The will to breastfeed was also recognized as an Instinct. The older women remained more in the background, exerting a Silent Impact. Parents' agreement that mothers remain at home and breastfeed for the first 6 months could be considered disturbing from a gender equality perspective. Competition arose between spouses, which could lead to Conflicts at weaning. The mothers in the study chose to stay home to do the Job and experience the Joy of breastfeeding. CONCLUSIONS A summarizing theme was the specific life value of breastfeeding, encompassing feelings of coherence, pleasure, and pride, regardless of generation affiliation. As the favorable interplay of biological, sensual, relational, and social elements this value upheld the decision to breastfeed. It compensated for the effort and negative experiences, and as a finding, it appears to be transferable among breastfeeding mothers in other developed countries.
Deficiency of Glutathione Peroxidase-1 Sensitizes Hyperhomocysteinemic Mice to Endothelial Dysfunction

Objective—We tested the hypothesis that deficiency of cellular glutathione peroxidase (GPx-1) enhances susceptibility to endothelial dysfunction in mice with moderate hyperhomocysteinemia. Methods and Results—Mice that were wild type (Gpx1+/+), heterozygous (Gpx1+/−), or homozygous (Gpx1−/−) for the mutated Gpx1 allele were fed a control diet or a high-methionine diet for 17 weeks. Plasma total homocysteine was elevated in mice on the high-methionine diet compared with mice on the control diet (23±3 versus 6±0.3 &mgr;mol/L, respectively;P <0.001) and was not influenced by Gpx1 genotype. In mice fed the control diet, maximal relaxation of the aorta in response to the endothelium-dependent dilator acetylcholine (10−5 mol/L) was similar in Gpx1+/+, Gpx1+/−, and Gpx1−/− mice, but relaxation to lower concentrations of acetylcholine was selectively impaired in Gpx1−/− mice (P <0.05 versus Gpx1+/+ mice). In mice fed the high-methionine diet, relaxation to low and high concentrations of acetylcholine was impaired in Gpx1−/− mice (maximal relaxation 73±6% in Gpx1−/− mice versus 90±2% in Gpx1+/+ mice, P <0.05). No differences in vasorelaxation to nitroprusside or papaverine were observed between Gpx1+/+ and Gpx1−/− mice fed either diet. Dihydroethidium fluorescence, a marker of superoxide, was elevated in Gpx1−/− mice fed the high-methionine diet (P <0.05 versus Gpx1+/+ mice fed the control diet). Conclusions—These findings demonstrate that deficiency of GPx-1 exacerbates endothelial dysfunction in hyperhomocysteinemic mice and provide support for the hypothesis that hyperhomocysteinemia contributes to endothelial dysfunction through a peroxide-dependent oxidative mechanism.
Energy efficient multipath TCP for mobile devices

Most mobile devices today come with multiple access interfaces, \emph{e.g.}, 4G and WiFi. Multipath TCP (MP-TCP) can greatly improve network performance by exploiting the connection diversity of multiple access interfaces, at the expense of higher energy consumption. In this paper, we design MP-TCP algorithms for mobile devices by jointly considering the performance and energy consumption. We consider two main types of mobile applications: realtime applications that have a fixed duration and file transfer applications that have a fixed data size. For each type of applications, we propose a two-timescale algorithm with theoretical guarantee on the performance. We present simulation results that show that our algorithms can reduce energy consumption by up to 22$\%$ without sacrificing throughput compared to a baseline MP-TCP algorithm.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy of Lipoproteins and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in the Cardiovascular Health Study

Objectives—Relationships between incident cardiovascular disease and lipoprotein subclass measurements by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy were evaluated in the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) in a nested case-cohort analysis. Methods and Results—The case group consisted of 434 participants with incident myocardial infarction (MI) and angina diagnosed after entry to the study (1990 to 1995) and the comparison group, 249 “healthy” participants with no prevalent clinical or subclinical disease. By univariate analysis, the median levels for healthy participants versus participants with incident MI and angina were 0 versus 7 mg% for small low density lipoprotein (LDL), 1501 versus 1680 nmol/L for the number of LDL particles, and 21.6 versus 21.3 for LDL size, and these values were significantly different between “healthy” participants and those with incident MI and angina for women but not men. The levels of less dense LDL, which is most of the total LDL cholesterol among women, was not related to incident MI and angina. For women, large high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLc), but not small HDLc, levels were significantly higher for healthy participants compared with levels for participants with MI and angina. For men and women, levels of total and very low density lipoprotein triglycerides were higher for the case group than for the healthy group. In multivariate models for women that included triglycerides and HDLc, the number of LDL particles (but not LDL size) remained significantly related to MI and angina. Conclusions—Small LDL, the size of LDL particles, and the greater number of LDL particles are related to incident coronary heart disease among older women.