Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Carcinoembryonic antigen as a marker for colorectal cancer: is it clinically useful?

BACKGROUND Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is one of the most widely used tumor markers worldwide. Its main application is mostly in gastrointestinal cancers, especially in colorectal malignancy. Although in use for almost 30 years, the clinical value of CEA in colorectal cancer is still not clear. METHODS The literature relevant to the clinical value of CEA in colorectal cancer was reviewed. Particular attention was paid to studies involving metaanalyses and guidelines issued by Expert Panels. RESULTS Although of little use in detecting early colorectal cancer, high preoperative concentrations of CEA correlate with adverse prognosis. Serial CEA measurements can detect recurrent colorectal cancer with a sensitivity of approximately 80%, a specificity of approximately 70%, and can provide a lead time of approximately 5 months. CEA is the most frequent indicator of recurrence in asymptomatic patients and currently is the most cost-effective test for the preclinical detection of resectable disease. CEA is most useful for the early detection of liver metastasis in patients with diagnosed colorectal cancer. Overall, however, little evidence is available that monitoring of all patients with diagnosed colorectal cancer leads to enhanced patient outcome or quality of life. CONCLUSIONS Currently, the most useful application of CEA is in the detection of liver metastasis from colorectal cancers. Because of the relative success of surgery in resecting hepatic metastases, serial determinations of the marker are recommended for detecting cancer spread to the liver. In the future, preoperative concentrations of CEA may be included with the standard staging procedures for assessing prognosis.
Vascular endothelial growth factor gene polymorphisms and renal cell carcinoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) accounts for 3% of all cancer-related mortalities in adults. The risk factors for the development of RCC remain under investigation. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key mediator of angiogenesis and is crucial for the development and metastasis of tumors, including RCC. VEGF gene polymorphisms may alter VEGF protein concentrations, affect the process of angiogenesis and may be involved in inter-individual variation in carcinogenesis. In the present study, a systematic review and meta-analysis were performed based on published case-control studies in order to estimate the association between VEGF gene polymorphisms and the susceptibility to RCC. A total of five studies that involved eight polymorphisms and were published between January 2000 and December 2012 were identified from PubMed. The results of this systematic review and meta-analysis indicate that the VEGF 936C/T, 1612G/A, −1154G/A, −2549I/D, −460T/C and 405G/C gene polymorphisms are not associated with the risk of RCC. There was no polymorphism in 702C/T and RCC and the −2578C/A gene polymorphism may be associated with an increased risk of RCC. However, due to the limitations of the present study, further high quality case-control studies are warranted to confirm these findings.
Timing-Driven Titan: Enabling Large Benchmarks and Exploring the Gap between Academic and Commercial CAD

Benchmarks play a key role in Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) architecture and CAD research, enabling the quantitative comparison of tools and architectures. It is important that these benchmarks reflect modern large-scale systems that make use of heterogeneous resources; however, most current FPGA benchmarks are both small and simple. In this artile, we present Titan, a hybrid CAD flow that addresses these issues. The flow uses Altera’s Quartus II FPGA CAD software to perform HDL synthesis and a conversion tool to translate the result into the academic Berkeley Logic Interchange Format (BLIF). Using this flow, we created the Titan23 benchmark set, which consists of 23 large (90K--1.8M block) benchmark circuits covering a wide range of application domains. Using the Titan23 benchmarks and an enhanced model of Altera’s Stratix IV architecture, including a detailed timing model, we compare the performance and quality of VPR and Quartus II targeting the same architecture. We found that VPR is at least 2.8 × slower, uses 6.2 × more memory, 2.2 × more wire, and produces critical paths 1.5 × slower compared to Quartus II. Finally, we identified that VPR’s focus on achieving a dense packing and an inability to take apart clusters is responsible for a large portion of the wire length and critical path delay gap.
Fission Yeast CSL Proteins Function as Transcription Factors

Background Transcription factors of the CSL (CBF1/RBP-Jk/Suppressor of Hairless/LAG-1) family are key regulators of metazoan development and function as the effector components of the Notch receptor signalling pathway implicated in various cell fate decisions. CSL proteins recognize specifically the GTG[G/A]AA sequence motif and several mutants compromised in their ability to bind DNA have been reported. In our previous studies we have identified a number of novel putative CSL family members in fungi, organisms lacking the Notch pathway. It is not clear whether these represent genuine CSL family members. Methodology/Principal Findings Using a combination of in vitro and in vivo approaches we characterized the DNA binding properties of Cbf11 and Cbf12, the antagonistic CSL paralogs from the fission yeast, important for the proper coordination of cell cycle events and the regulation of cell adhesion. We have shown that a mutation of a conserved arginine residue abolishes DNA binding in both CSL paralogs, similar to the situation in mouse. We have also demonstrated the ability of Cbf11 and Cbf12 to activate gene expression in an autologous fission yeast reporter system. Conclusions/Significance Our results indicate that the fission yeast CSL proteins are indeed genuine family members capable of functioning as transcription factors, and provide support for the ancient evolutionary origin of this important protein family.
Socioecology of wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus): an analysis of social relationships among female primates that use tools in feeding

Socioecology considers that the features of food sources affect female social relationships in group-living species. Among primates, the tests of socioecological models are largely focused on Old World species and do not evaluate if the use of feeding tools affects the competitive regime over food and females’ relations in wild populations. We studied female social relationships among a wild population of bearded capuchins monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) that use percussive tools (stones) to crack encased foods, in a semi-arid habitat in Brazil. Females fed mainly on clumped, high quality resources, indicating that the habitat provides a high quality diet year-round. Females experienced contest competition within and between-groups. As predicted by socioecological models, females’ social relationships were characterized by philopatry, linear dominance hierarchies, coalitions, and tolerance in feeding bouts. Females spent a small proportion of their feeding time using tools. Nevertheless, tool sites generated high rates of contest competition and lower indices of tolerance among females. Although the social structure of our study population did not differ significantly from the pattern observed in wild populations of Sapajus that do not use tools, tool use increased within-group contest competition and apparently contributed to the linearity of the dominance hierarchies established among females. We predict that when tool use results in usurpable food resources, it will increase contest competition within group-living species.
7 Wg6 -hci and Cognitive Modelling

cannot be applied to several UbiComp applications (current wireless firewalls are not appropriate for ad hoc networks), IDS can help to monitor and analyze the traffic in UbiComp applications based on sensor networks. The analysis of audit data for the construction of intrusion detection models can be based on Data Mining algorithms which return frequent activity patterns 24. However, sensor networks pose new challenging requirements to DM methods, since the solution should be fully distributed and inexpensive in terms of communication, energy, and memory requirements. In addition, the networked nature of sensor networks allows new, automated defenses against DoS attacks 25. Some Interactive attacks, that is, the misuse of the UbiComp systems augmented facilities for responding to or receiving environmental signals, can be considered as a form of availability attacks specific of UbiComp applications. Indeed, when an interactive attack occurs, the UbiComp system might simply not properly react to some environmental signals because it is too busy to process other requests or because its reaction do not reach the environmental context. For instance, a wireless-equipped car whose processor is flooded of requests from a malicious node of an ad hoc network, will not be able to timely react to environmental signals that indicate a hazardous situation. Once again, it is important to develop the appropriate DM methods for the analysis of the stream of requests in order to identify possible misuse of the UbiComp systems augmented facilities. Since reaction time is a critical factor, the efficiency of the DM method should be considered a fundamental requirement when detecting interactive attacks. Real-time data mining can become a new active research area, where efforts on distributed data mining, knowledge discovery from data streams and on-line learning algorithms do synergistically meet. Human-computer interaction (HCI) and Cognitive Modelling (CM) are fields of Computer Science and Cognitive Science that strive towards a human-centric view of information systems. HCI is the study of interaction between people and computers, which occurs at the user interface (hardware and software). CM is the use of computational methods to model mental representations and processes and the behaviour resulting from them. Many HCI decisions depend on the cognitive processes that the user goes through or is meant to go through during interaction; in this sense, cognitive modelling is an essential part of HCI. Ubiquitous computing has been described as " a very difficult integration of human factors, computer science, engineering, and …
Efficient Full-Band Monte Carlo Simulation of Silicon Devices

The full-band Monte Carlo technique is currently the most accurate device simulation method, but its usefulness is limited because it is very CPU intensive. This work describes efficient algorithms in detail, which raise the efficiency of the full-band Monte Carlo method to a level where it becomes applicable in the device design process beyond exemplary simulations. The k-space is discretized with a nonuniform tetrahedral grid, which minimizes the discretization error of the linear energy interpolation and memory requirements. A consistent discretization of the inverse mass tensor is utilized to formulate efficient transport parameter estimators. Particle scattering is modeled in such a way that a very fast rejection technique can be used for the generation of the final state eliminating the main cause of the inefficiency of full-band Monte Carlo simulations. The developed full-band Monte Carlo simulator is highly efficient. For example, in conjunction with the nonself-consistent simulation technique CPU times of a few CPU minutes per bias point are achieved for substrate current calculations. Self-consistent calculations of the drain current of a 60 nm-NMOSFET take about a few CPU hours demonstrating the feasibility of full-band Monte Carlo simulations. key words: silicon, full-band Monte Carlo, microscopic relax-
A New Token Bucket DiffServ Policy for Web Traffic

DiffServ policies have traditionally been applied to several types of Internet traffic like HTTP, FTP and CBR. DiffServ policies concerning HTTP traffic are commonly focused on preferential treatment of short flows, which are more sensitive to Internet delays and congestion, whereas long flows are penalized by the application of besteffort policies. This differentiation may produce low global performance of the system mainly caused by high penalization of long flows. In this paper we propose some DiffServ policies based on Token Bucket that realize preferential treatment of short flows but include a better bandwidth treatment profit and lower penalization of long flows, compared to previous policies described in the literature.
Efficient and provably secure steganography

Steganography is the art of encoding secret messages into unsuspicious covertexts, such that an adversary cannot distinguish the resulting stegotexts from original covertexts. A covertext consists of a sequence of documents. Whereas a large amount of work has gone into practical implementations of steganography, mostly for multimedia data as covertexts, only few theoretical analyses exist. In their seminal paper, Hopper et al. (2002b) presented black-box stegosystems, i.e., stegosystems that do not make any assumptions about the structure of covertexts, which can be proven secure. However, as these stegosystems only embed single bits per document, they are quite inefficient in terms of the transmission rate. An extension to multiple bits per document has been shown by Dedić et al. (2009) to be computationally infeasible. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how to achieve both security and efficiency (in the transmission rate) at the same time. First it is shown that so-called fixed-entropy samplers, which output low-min-entropy parts of documents, are hard to construct for even slightly structured channels. Due to this and Dedić et al’s result the black-box model of steganography appears to be a deadend. Therefore, a new model, called grey-box steganography, is suggested, in which the knowledge about the covertext channel is described by hypotheses, whose form depends on the structure of the channel. It is shown that efficient and secure steganography can be achieved for various hypothesis representations. Based on these results, future practical implementations of secure stegosystems appear possible. However, because the hypotheses have to be constructed by the steganographic encoder, e.g. by using algorithmic learning, there are limitations due to the hardness of learning certain concept classes. Starting with the observation that the commonly used notion of insecurity does not fit the situation in steganography, a new security notion, called detectability is proposed and three variants given. These are used in the analysis of two stegosystems that are both insecure, but achieve different results in terms of detectability. Detectability on average is determined to be best suited for security analyses in steganography. Furthermore, one of the analysed stegosystems, whose security depends on the difficulty of distinguishing between the output of two pseudorandom functions, presents a good candidate for future practical implementations, as it achieves both a good transmission rate and low detectability on average.
Bouncing and raindrop image search algorithms, two novel feature detection mechanisms

In this paper, two novel image search mechanisms are introduced and compared against the traditional linear approach and one another. These feature detection algorithms mimic two natural human search strategies which make them suitable for faster feature detection within pixelated images. Unlike linear approaches where pixel-by-pixel probing is required, these mechanisms provide faster feature detection due to their non-linear nature. The proposed algorithms are suitable for various feature detection applications, such as face detection, image labelling, abnormality detection in medical images, and the like. Raindrop and Bouncing mechanisms outperformed the linear approach by 75.2% and 89.8% respectively when tested separately against the linear algorithm. Moreover, after conducting extensive experiments with various conditions on all three algorithms, Raindrop detected 50.85% of the features while Bouncing and linear algorithms were successful in 35.08% and 14.07% of the tests respectively.
Comparison Study of the Use of Absorbable and Nonabsorbable Materials as Internal Splints after Closed Reduction for Nasal Bone Fracture

Background The authors sought to compare the use of the nonabsorbable polyvinyl alcohol sponge (PVA, Merocel) and absorbable synthetic polyurethane foam (SPF, Nasopore Forte plus) as intranasal splints after closed reduction of fractured nasal bones during the hospitalization period. Methods The medical records of 111 patients who underwent closed reduction for nasal bone fracture at Sanggye Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, from 2012 to 2013 were reviewed retrospectively. PVA (group A) or SPF (group B) was packed as an internal splint after closed reduction. The efficacy of the materials was compared and statistically analyzed. Results PVA was used in 82 patients, and SPF was used in 29 patients. The patients in group B complained significantly more of nasal pain on the first day after operation than the patients in group A. Headaches on the operation day were significantly more painful in group B than in group A. Bleeding on the fourth postoperative day was significantly reduced in group B as compared to group A. The patients in group B exhibited significantly more intensive nasal obstruction on the operation day and the following day than the patients in group A. However, on the third and fourth postoperative days, the nasal obstruction in group B was less than that in group A. The pain and bleeding related to the packing material was significantly reduced in group B as compared to group A. Conclusions The use of SPF as an absorbable packing material is a reasonable substitute for the traditional nonabsorbable material.
Efficient CSG Representations of Two-Dimensional Solids

1.1 Motivation. Representation of planar solidsl is essential in many applications in modeling, robotics, and automation. Currently, two representation schemes are predominant: boundary representations (b-rep) and Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) representations. A b-rep specifies an object by a collection of edges, while CSG specifies an object using regularized set operations on simpler ("primitive") planar solids. The problem of computing a b-rep from 'a CSG representation is relatively well understood (Requicha and Voelcker, 1985). The inverse problem, b-rep-CSG conversion (i.e., computing a CSG representation from a b-rep), is important in various applications, and some nonoptimal techniques are known, but the problem has not been addressed generally. B-rep-CSG conversion in the plane is important in the following exemplary applications: . In graphics, computer vision, and image processing, image data are often processed into edge representations (breps), whereas representations of images as unions of simpler shapes are often desired. The latter are a restricted form of CSG representation. ' . In 3-D solid modeling, objects are often built by "sweeping" a planar outline (Woodwark and Wallis, 1982). The outline is typically described as a list of edges (a b-rep) which must be converted, in some modeling systems, to a planar
Quantum group symmetry and discrete scale invariance: Spectral aspects

We study analytical aspects of a generic q-deformation with q real, by relating it with discrete scale invariance. We show how models of conformal quantum mechanics, in the strong coupling regime and after regularization, are also discrete scale invariant. We discuss the consequences of their distinctive spectra, characterized by functional behavior. The role of log-periodic behavior and q-periodic functions is examined, and we show how q-deformed zeta functions, characterized by complex poles, appear. As an application, we discuss one-loop effects in discretely self-similar space-times.
Selective Flotation of Calcite from Fluorite: A Novel Reagent Schedule

Fluorite is an important strategic mineral. In general, fluorite ores will contain a certain amount of calcite gangue mineral. Thus, they need to be separated from each other. For an economic separation, a reverse flotation process is used to float calcite gangue from fluorite. However, little information on the separation is available. In this study, a novel reagent schedule using citric acid (CA) as the depressant, sodium fluoride (NaF) as the regulator and sulfoleic acid (SOA) as the collector, was developed to separate calcite from fluorite. The results demonstrated a high selectivity for the flotation of calcite from fluorite using this new reagent schedule. The best selective separation for a single mineral and mixed binary minerals was obtained when 200 mg/L of NaF, 50 mg/L of CA, and 6 mg/L of SOA were used at pH 9. In addition, a batch flotation experiment was carried out using a run-of-mine feed material. Selective separation was achieved with 85.18% calcite removal while only 11.2% of fluorite was lost. An attempt was made to understand the effect of the new reagent schedule on the flotation of calcite. The results from both microflotation and bench scale flotation demonstrated a great potential for industrial application using this novel reagent schedule to upgrade fluorite ore.
Large vocabulary continuous speech recognition in greek: corpus and an automatic dictation system

In this work, we present the creation of the first Greek Speech Corpus and the implementation of a Dictation System for workflow improvement in the field of journalism. The current work was implemented under the project called Logotypografia (Logos = logos, speech and Typografia = typography) sponsored by the General Secretariat of Research and Development of Greece. This paper presents the process of data collection (texts and recordings), waveform processing (transcriptions), creation of the acoustic and language models and the final integration to a fully functional dictation system. The evaluation of this system is also presented. The Logotypografia database, described here, is available by ELRA.
KNMI Climate Explorer: A Web-Based Research Tool for High-Resolution Paleoclimatology

Abstract Climate Explorer (www.climexp.knmi.nl) is a web-based application for climatic research that is managed by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and contains a comprehensive collection of climatic data sets and analysis tools. One of its fields of application is high-resolution paleoclimatology. We show how Climate Explorer can be used to explore and download available instrumental climate data and derived time series, to examine the climatic signal in uploaded high-resolution paleoclimate time series, and to investigate the temporal and spatial characteristics of climate reconstructions. We further demonstrate the value of Climate Explorer for high-resolution paleoclimate research using a dendroclimatic data set from the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco.