Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human Cancers and Their Metastases in Common α Overexpression of Hypoxia-inducible Factor 1 Updated Version

Neovascularization and increased glycolysis, two universal characteristics of solid tumors, represent adaptations to a hypoxic microenvironment that are correlated with tumor invasion, metastasis, and lethality. Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) activates transcription of genes encoding glucose transporters, glycolytic enzymes, and vascular endothelial growth factor. HIF-1 transcriptional activity is determined by regulated expression of the HIF-1a subunit. In this study, HIF-1a expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry in 179 tumor specimens. HIF-1 a was overexpressed in 13 of 19 tumor types compared with the respective normal tissues, including colon, breast, gastric, lung, skin, ovarian, pancreatic, prostate, and renal carcinomas. HIF-1a expression was correlated with aberrant p53 accumulation and cell proliferation. Preneoplastic lesions in breast, colon, and prostate overexpressed HIF-1 a, whereas benign tumors in breast and uterus did not. HIF-1a overexpression was detected in only 29% of primary breast cancers but in 69% of breast cancer metastases. In brain tumors, HIF-1a immunohistochemistry demarcated areas of angiogenesis. These results provide the first clinical data indicating that HIF-1 a may play an important role in human cancer progression.
CTH14-5: Probability Density Functions of Logarithmic Likelihood Ratios in Phase Shift Keying BICM

Bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) is a coded-modulation scheme where the output of the channel encoder and the input of the modulator are separated by a bit- level interleaver. From the decoder's point of view, the modulator, the transmission channel, and the demodulator (calculating bits' reliability metrics) become a memoryless BICM channel with binary inputs and real outputs. The BICM channel's outputs (reliability metrics) are known to be Gaussian for binary-or quaternary phase shift keying but no expression for their probability density function (PDF) is known for higher-order modulation. We fill this gap presenting closed-form expressions for PDF of reliability metrics in BICM based on M-PSK with gray mapping. Such probabilistic description of BICM channel is necessary to calculate the channel's information-theoretic parameters such as capacity, or cut-off rate but it is also a tool required to analyze the performance of coded transmission.
Speaking rate compensation based on likelihood criterion in acoustic model training and decoding

In this paper, we propose a speaking rate compensation method using frame period and frame length adaptation. Our method decodes an input utterance using several sets of frame period and frame length parameters for speech analysis. Then, this method selects the best set with the highest score which consists of the acoustic likelihood normalized by frame period, language likelihood and insertion penalty. Furthermore, we apply this approach to the training of the acoustic model. We calculate the acoustic likelihood for each frame period and frame length using Viterbi alignment and select the best one for each training utter-ance. The proposed speaking rate compensation applied to both the acoustic model creation process and decoding process resulted in accuracy improvement of 2.9% (absolute) for spontaneous lecture speech recognition task.
Path generation and tracking based on a Bézier curve for a steering rate controller of autonomous vehicles

The present paper demonstrates a feasible real-time path planning algorithm and tracking method for autonomous driving vehicles based on a 5th-order Bézier curve. It is demonstrated that a 5th-degree Bézier curve is required to generate a feasible path to achieve lane change maneuvers in a dynamic on-road environment. The steering rate control input is calculated based on the curvature extracted from the generated trajectory. Matlab simulations were conducted both for path generation and instantaneous planning of driving path for single and double lane change maneuvers. The proposed method was evaluated in an experiment using a miniature-sized unmanned ground vehicle.
Finding food entity relationships using user-generated data in recipe service

Rakuten recipe is a recipe site where users can submit their recipes and share with the others. Since recipe contents are generated by users, they usually contain many misspellings, abbreviations, synonyms, hypernyms and hyponyms. Identifying and normalizing these words is essential to retrieve relevant recipes to user's request. In this paper, we introduce a new approach to finding related words in a recipe domain using the data structure. Based on the observation that people usually write the main ingredient in the first position of ingredient lists of each recipe and such a ingredient is strongly related to the categories where recipes belong, we calculate relation scores of word pairs using real service data, which contains 790 categories and 405,519 recipes. The experimental result showed that we successfully found semantically related word pairs with f-score of 0.93.
Prototype of an ICN based approach for flexible service chaining in SDN

With the widespread use of middleboxes in communication networks (e.g., for services such as Firewall, DPI, accounting, proxies, caching), additional processing beyond simple forwarding has become common. With the emergence of Network Function Virtualization (NFV), dynamically instantiating these functions becomes even more feasible. In addition, chaining such services for packet flows is key to efficiently delivering Internet services. In addition, Software Defined Networking (SDN) gives Internet Service Providers greater flexibility to provision such middlebox based services and route flows through them. However, with the dynamic instantiation of network functions, efficient and scalable use of these services requires separation of the services from their location. In this work, we implement and demonstrate an Information Centric Networking based solution that complements SDN for service chaining and provides benefits such as scalability, flexibility and reliability.
Analysing complexity of XML schemas in geospatial web services

XML Schema is the language used to define the structure of messages exchanged between OGC-based web service clients and providers. The size of these schemas has been growing with time, reaching a state that makes its understanding and effective application a hard task. A first step to cope with this situation is to provide different ways to measure the complexity of the schemas. In this regard, we present in this paper an analysis of the complexity of XML schemas in OGC web services. We use a group of metrics found in the literature and introduce new metrics to measure size and/or complexity of these schemas. The use of adequate metrics allows us to quantify the complexity, quality and other properties of the schemas, which can be very useful in different scenarios.
Intertemporal Price Discrimination with Complementary Products: E-Books and E-Readers

This paper studies intertemporal price discrimination (IPD) with complementary products in the context of e-readers and e-books using individual-level data (2008-2012). I estimate a dynamic demand model of e-reader adoption and subsequent book quantity, reading format, and retailer choices in several book genres. I use the estimates to simulate a monopolist’s optimal dynamic pricing strategies facing forward-looking consumers. Complementarity provides the firm a novel dimension of consumer heterogeneity (relative demand elasticities between e-readers and e-books) to exploit. Harvesting on e-readers and investing in e-books offers a better screening device for more profitable consumers and limits consumers’ ability to intertemporally arbitrage.
The relation between Granger causality and directed information theory: a review

This report reviews the conceptual and theoretical links between Granger causality and directed information theory. We begin with a short historical tour of Granger causality, concentrating on its closeness to information theory. The definitions of Granger causality based on prediction are recalled, and the importance of the observation set is discussed. We present the definitions based on conditional independence. The notion of instantaneous coupling is included in the definitions. The concept of Granger causality graphs is discussed. We present directed information theory from the perspective of studies of causal influences between stochastic processes. Causal conditioning appears to be the cornerstone for the relation between information theory and Granger causality. In the bivariate case, the fundamental measure is the directed information, which decomposes as the sum of the transfer entropies and a term quantifying instantaneous coupling. We show the decomposition of the mutual information into the sums of the transfer entropies and the instantaneous coupling measure, a relation known for the linear Gaussian case. We study the multivariate case, showing that the useful decomposition is blurred by instantaneous coupling. The links are further developed by studying how measures based on directed information theory naturally emerge from Granger causality inference frameworks as hypothesis testing.
Remarks on Dynamic Monopolies with Given Average Thresholds

Abstract Dynamic monopolies in graphs have been studied as a model for spreading processes within networks. Together with their dual notion, the generalized degenerate sets, they form the immediate generalization of the classical notions of vertex covers and independent sets in a graph. We present results concerning dynamic monopolies in graphs of given average threshold values extending and generalizing previous results of Khoshkhah et al. [On dynamic monopolies of graphs: The average and strict majority thresholds, Discrete Optimization 9 (2012) 77-83] and Zaker [Generalized degeneracy, dynamic monopolies and maximum degenerate subgraphs, Discrete Appl. Math. 161 (2013) 2716-2723].
Self rated health: Is it as good a predictor of subsequent mortality among adults in lower as well as in higher social classes?

STUDY OBJECTIVE To analyse the predictive power of self rated health for mortality in different socioeconomic groups. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS Analysis of mortality rates and risk ratios of death during follow up among 170 223 respondents aged 16 years and above in the Swedish Survey of Living Conditions 1975–1997, in relation to self rated health stated at the interview, by age, sex, socioeconomic group, chronic illness and over time. MAIN RESULTS There was a strong relation between poor self rated health and mortality, greater at younger ages, similar among men and women and among persons with and without a chronic illness. The relative relation between self rated health and subsequent death was stronger in higher than in lower socioeconomic groups, possibly because of the lower base mortality of these groups. However, the absolute mortality risk differences between persons reporting poor and good self rated health were similar across socioeconomic groups within each sex. The mortality risk difference between persons reporting poor and good self rated health was considerably higher among persons with a chronic illness than among persons without a chronic illness. The mortality risk among persons reporting poor health was increased for shorter (<2 years) as well as longer (10+ years) periods of follow up. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that poor self rated health is a strong predictor of subsequent mortality in all subgroups studied, and that self rated health therefore may be a useful outcome measure.
Suppressing the azimuth ambiguities in synthetic aperture radar images

A method for removing the azimuth ambiguities from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is proposed. The basic idea is to generate a two-dimensional reference function for SAR processing which provides, in addition to the matched filtering for the unaliased part of the received signal, the deconvolution of the azimuth ambiguities. This approach corresponds to an ideal filter concept, where an ideal impulse response function is obtained even in the presence of several phase and amplitude errors. Modeling the sampled azimuth signal shows that the absolute phase value of the ambiguities cannot easily be determined due to their undersampling. The concept of the ideal filter is then extended to accommodate the undefined phase of the ambiguities and also the fading of the azimuth signal. Raw data from the E-SAR system have been used to verify the improvement in image quality obtained by the new method. It has a substantial advantage in enabling the pulse-repetition frequency (PRF) constraints in the SAR system design to be relaxed and also for improving SAR image quality and interpretation. >
The ‘reasonable accommodation’ of religion: Is this a better way of advancing equality in cases of religious discrimination?

Freedom of religion and the manifestation of religious belief can clash with working life in a number of ways, including time away from work for religious observance, conflicts over religious clothing and jewellery in an employer’s dress code or a request for a variation of duties based on a particular religious belief. Guidance issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (2013) following Eweida and others v. UK [2013] 57 EHRR 8 seems to suggest that employers in Great Britain should consider the ‘reasonable accommodation’ of religion in the workplace and, in particular, how an individual chooses to manifest that religious belief. Subsequently, there has been much debate about whether this is a better way of dealing with religious discrimination cases than the current complex legal framework of direct and indirect discrimination in the Equality Act 2010. Section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 already allows for reasonable adjustments to be made to working practices and the physical working environment for disabled employees. Should this duty be expanded to include religion and what would be the consequences and impact of such an accommodation or adjustment on the employment relationship?
Subcortical Shape Changes, Hippocampal Atrophy and Cortical Thinning in Future Alzheimer's Disease Patients

Efficacy of future treatments depends on biomarkers identifying patients with mild cognitive impairment at highest risk for transitioning to Alzheimer's disease. Here, we applied recently developed analysis techniques to investigate cross-sectional differences in subcortical shape and volume alterations in patients with stable mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (n = 23, age range 59–82, 47.8% female), future converters at baseline (n = 10, age range 66–84, 90% female) and at time of conversion (age range 68–87) compared to group-wise age and gender matched healthy control subjects (n = 23, age range 61–81, 47.8% female; n = 10, age range 66–82, 80% female; n = 10, age range 68–82, 70% female). Additionally, we studied cortical thinning and global and local measures of hippocampal atrophy as known key imaging markers for Alzheimer's disease. Apart from bilateral striatal volume reductions, no morphometric alterations were found in cognitively stable patients. In contrast, we identified shape alterations in striatal and thalamic regions in future converters at baseline and at time of conversion. These shape alterations were paralleled by Alzheimer's disease like patterns of left hemispheric morphometric changes (cortical thinning in medial temporal regions, hippocampal total and subfield atrophy) in future converters at baseline with progression to similar right hemispheric alterations at time of conversion. Additionally, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicated that subcortical shape alterations may outperform hippocampal volume in identifying future converters at baseline. These results further confirm the key role of early cortical thinning and hippocampal atrophy in the early detection of Alzheimer's disease. But first and foremost, and by distinguishing future converters but not patients with stable cognitive abilities from cognitively normal subjects, our results support the value of early subcortical shape alterations and reduced hippocampal subfield volumes as potential markers for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease.
THE EFFECTS OF POLARIZATION ON FRACTAL DIMENSION MAPS ESTIMATED FROM SAR DATA

In this paper the innovative SAR image processing technique developed by the authors and aimed to provide a map of the point by point fractal dimension of a single (amplitude) SAR image is applied to a data-set of COSMO-SkyMed images. The considered images were acquired with different polarizations in different days of August 2011 (i.e., the data set is not fully polarimetric). The main objective of the paper is to explore the potential dependence on polarization of the fractal dimension maps estimated on natural and urban scenarios. The comparison of the obtained maps is performed investigating the statistical behavior of the fractal dimension maps in homogeneous areas. The obtained results demonstrate the independence of the maps from the considered polarization channel.
Fuzzy clustering of quantitative and qualitative data

In many applications the objects to cluster are described by quantitative as well as qualitative features. A variety of algorithms has been proposed for unsupervised classification if fuzzy partitions and descriptive cluster prototypes are desired. However, most of these methods are designed for data sets with variables measured in the same scale type (only categorical, or only metric). We propose a new fuzzy clustering approach based on a probabilistic distance measure. Thus a major drawback of present methods can be avoided which ties in the vulnerability to favor one type of attributes.
Backhaul Limited Asymmetric Cooperation for MIMO Cellular Networks via Semidefinite Relaxation

Multicell cooperation has recently attracted tremendous attention because of its ability to eliminate intercell interference and increase spectral efficiency. However, the enormous amount of information being exchanged, including channel state information and user data, over backhaul links may deteriorate the network performance in a realistic system. This paper adopts a backhaul cost metric that considers the number of active directional cooperation links, which gives a first order measurement of the backhaul loading required in asymmetric Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) cooperation. We focus on a downlink scenario for multi-antenna base stations and single-antenna mobile stations. The design problem is minimizing the number of active directional cooperation links and jointly optimizing the beamforming vectors among the cooperative BSs subject to signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratio (SINR) constraints at the mobile station. This problem is non-convex and solving it requires combinatorial search. A practical algorithm based on smooth approximation and semidefinite relaxation is proposed to solve the combinatorial problem efficiently. We show that semidefinite relaxation is tight with probability 1 in our algorithm and stationary convergence is guaranteed. Simulation results show the saving of backhaul cost and power consumption is notable compared with several baseline schemes and its effectiveness is demonstrated.
Down-Regulation of CTLA-4 by HIV-1 Nef Protein

HIV-1 Nef protein down-regulates several cell surface receptors through its interference with the cell sorting and trafficking machinery. Here we demonstrate for the first time the ability of Nef to down-regulate cell surface expression of the negative immune modulator CTLA-4. Down-regulation of CTLA-4 required the Nef motifs DD175, EE155 and LL165, all known to be involved in vesicle trafficking. Disruption of the lysosomal functions by pH-neutralizing agents prevented CTLA-4 down-regulation by Nef, demonstrating the implication of the endosomal/lysosomal compartments in this process. Confocal microscopy experiments visualized the co-localization between Nef and CTLA-4 in the early and recycling endosomes but not at the cell surface. Overall, our results provide a novel mechanism by which HIV-1 Nef interferes with the surface expression of the negative regulator of T cell activation CTLA-4. Down-regulation of CTLA-4 may contribute to the mechanisms by which HIV-1 sustains T cell activation, a critical step in viral replication and dissemination.
A GPU-Accelerated GVF Snake Algorithm

GVF Snake is one of the most widely-used edge detection algorithms, nevertheless subject to its slow computation. This paper reveals the bottleneck, and transfers the time-consuming part of this algorithm to the GPU for better performance. With the help of powerful parallel computing ability of the GPU, our improved algorithm could be as about 5 times fast as is executed on the CPU.
Prevalence of renal impairment and use of nephrotoxic agents among patients with bone metastases from solid tumors in the United States

The renal status of patients with bone metastases secondary to solid tumors and their treatment with nephrotoxic agents is not well characterized. This retrospective study analyzed electronic medical records data from US‐based oncology clinics to identify adult (age ≥18) solid tumor patients with first bone metastasis diagnosis and ≥1 serum creatinine recorded between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2013. Patients with multiple myeloma, multiple primary tumor types, acute renal failure, and/or end‐stage renal disease were excluded. Using the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration formula, we determined the prevalence of renal impairment (RI: single estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] value <60 mL/min per 1.73 m2) and chronic kidney disease (CKD: ≥2 eGFR values <60, at least 90 days apart). We also examined the use of intravenous bisphosphonates (IV BP) and other nephrotoxic agents. Approximately half of the 11,809 patients were female. Breast (34%) and lung (28%) tumors were the most common. At bone metastasis diagnosis, mean age was 67 years and 24% of patients exhibited RI. The 5‐year prevalence was 43% for RI and 71% for CKD among RI patients. Nearly half (46%) of CKD patients received IV BP in the 12 months following their confirming eGFR and 13% of these patients received at least one other nephrotoxic agent during that period. This is the first US‐based study to examine the prevalence of RI among patients with bone metastases from solid tumors. RI is common at bone metastases diagnosis, and a substantial proportion of patients develop RI or CKD as their disease progresses. Whenever possible, treatments that are potentially less damaging for the kidney should be considered for patients with or predisposed to RI.