Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Democratizing online controlled experiments at Booking.com

There is an extensive literature about online controlled experiments, both on the statistical methods available to analyze experiment results as well as on the infrastructure built by several large scale Internet companies but also on the organizational challenges of embracing online experiments to inform product development. At Booking.com we have been conducting evidenced based product development using online experiments for more than ten years. Our methods and infrastructure were designed from their inception to reflect Booking.com culture, that is, with democratization and decentralization of experimentation and decision making in mind. In this paper we explain how building a central repository of successes and failures to allow for knowledge sharing, having a generic and extensible code library which enforces a loose coupling between experimentation and business logic, monitoring closely and transparently the quality and the reliability of the data gathering pipelines to build trust in the experimentation infrastructure, and putting in place safeguards to enable anyone to have end to end ownership of their experiments have allowed such a large organization as Booking.com to truly and successfully democratize experimentation.
Einführung in die Semiotik.

zur Position Eco ubernimmt die Definition der Semiotik von Peirce: „ in einer Beziehung Stimulus – Respons stellt sich ein Verhaltnis zwischen zwei Polen, dem stimulierenden Pol und dem stimulierten Pol, ohne jede Vermittlung her. In einem Semiose Verhaltnis aber ist der Stimulus ein Zeichen, das, um eine Reaktion hervorbringen zu konnen, von einem dritten Element vermittelt werden muss (nennen wir es nun „Interpretans“, „Sinn“, „Signifikat“, „Verweis auf den Code“.), welches bewirkt, dass das Zeichen sein Objekt fur den Empfanger darstellt. “
Risk of hospitalization with neurodegenerative disease after moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury in the working-age population: A retrospective cohort study using the Finnish national health registries

Background Previous epidemiological studies suggest that working-aged persons with a history of moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) may have an increased risk for developing neurodegenerative disease (NDD) while persons with a history of mild TBI do not. In this comprehensive nationwide study in Finland, we assessed the risk of NDD and history of moderate-to-severe TBI in the working-age population. Methods and findings We performed a population-based follow-up study using the Finnish Care Register for Health Care to identify all persons between the ages of 18 and 65 years hospitalized during 1987–2014 due to TBI who did not have a baseline NDD diagnosis. We compared the risk of hospitalization with NDD between persons hospitalized due to moderate-to-severe TBI (intracranial lesions) and persons hospitalized due to mild TBI (no intracranial lesions). Follow-up NDD diagnoses were recorded from 1 year following the TBI to the end of 2014. NDD diagnoses included dementia, Parkinson disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. We used a Cox proportional hazards model, adjusting for age, sex, education, and socioeconomic group, to assess the association between TBI and NDD. In total, 19,936 and 20,703 persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI and mild TBI, respectively, were included. The overall time at risk was 453,079 person-years (median 10 years per person). In total, 3.5% (N = 696) persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group developed NDD compared to 1.6% (N = 326) in the mild TBI group. After adjusting for covariates, moderate-to-severe TBI was associated with an increased risk for NDD, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.8 (95% CI 1.6–2.1) compared to mild TBI. Of the NDD subtypes, only moderate-to-severe TBI was associated with an increased risk for dementia (HR 1.9, 95% CI 1.6–2.2). Yet, this large-scale epidemiological study does not prove that there is a causal relationship between moderate-to-severe TBI and NDD. Further, the Care Register for Health Care includes only hospitalized persons; thus, patients diagnosed with NDD in the outpatient setting may have been missed. Additional limitations include the potential for miscoding and unmeasured confounds. Conclusions In working-aged persons, a history of moderate-to-severe TBI is associated with an increased risk for future dementia but not for Parkinson disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Cloud optical depth retrievals from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) cloud mode observations

[1] Cloud optical depth is one of the most poorly observed climate variables. The new “cloud mode” capability in the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) will inexpensively yet dramatically increase cloud optical depth observations in both number and accuracy. Cloud mode optical depth retrievals from AERONET were evaluated at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program's Oklahoma site in sky conditions ranging from broken clouds to overcast. For overcast cases, the 1.5 min average AERONET cloud mode optical depths agreed to within 15% of those from a standard ground-based flux method. For broken cloud cases, AERONET retrievals also captured rapid variations detected by the microwave radiometer. For 3 year climatology derived from all nonprecipitating clouds, AERONET monthly mean cloud optical depths are generally larger than cloud radar retrievals because of the current cloud mode observation strategy that is biased toward measurements of optically thick clouds. This study has demonstrated a new way to enhance the existing AERONET infrastructure to observe cloud optical properties on a global scale.
Debris From Failed Ceramic-on-Ceramic and Ceramic-on-Polyethylene Hip Prostheses

To compare the properties of wear debris between ceramic-on-ceramic and ceramic-on-polyethylene total hip prostheses, particles were isolated and characterized from tissue biopsies obtained at revision arthroplasty or autopsy from two similar uncemented modular hip systems. Group A hips (11 patients; mean, 31 months in vivo) had titanium shells with alumina inserts, alumina femoral heads, and titanium alloy stems. Group B hips (seven patients; mean, 42 months) were the same as Group A but with polyethylene acetabular inserts. Particles were characterized using an electrical resistance particle analyzer, scanning electron microscope, and energy dispersive xray spectroscope. Most of the particles in Group A were ceramic, whereas most of the particles in Group B were polyethylene. Metal particles from the femoral stem and the acetabular shell also were present. If one Group A hip with impingement is excluded, the rate of particle production is significantly lower in the ceramic-on-ceramic group than in the ceramic-on-polyethylene group. With the number of samples available, no significant difference in average size could be detected among the different types of particles or among the groups.
Touch-Free, Gesture-Based Control of Medical Devices and Software Based on the Leap Motion Controller

There are several intra-operative use cases which require the surgeon to interact with medical devices. We used the Leap Motion Controller as input device and implemented two use-cases: 2D-Interaction (e.g. advancing EPR data) and selection of a value (e.g. room illumination brightness). The gesture detection was successful and we mapped its output to several devices and systems.
Inhibition of Rho‐associated kinase blocks agonist‐induced Ca2+ sensitization of myosin phosphorylation and force in guinea‐pig ileum

Ca2+ sensitization of smooth muscle contraction involves the small GTPase RhoA, inhibition of myosin light chain phosphatase (MLCP) and enhanced myosin regulatory light chain (LC20) phosphorylation. A potential effector of RhoA is Rho‐associated kinase (ROK). The role of ROK in Ca2+ sensitization was investigated in guinea‐pig ileum. Contraction of permeabilized muscle strips induced by GTPγS at pCa 6.5 was inhibited by the kinase inhibitors Y‐27632, HA1077 and H‐7 with IC50 values that correlated with the known Ki values for inhibition of ROK. GTPγS also increased LC20 phosphorylation and this was prevented by HA1077. Contraction and LC20 phosphorylation elicited at pCa 5.75 were, however, unaffected by HA1077. Pre‐treatment of intact tissue strips with HA1077 abolished the tonic component of carbachol‐induced contraction and the sustained elevation of LC20 phosphorylation, but had no effect on the transient or sustained increase in [Ca2+]i induced by carbachol. LC20 phosphorylation and contraction dynamics suggest that the ROK‐mediated increase in LC20 phosphorylation is due to MLCP inhibition, not myosin light chain kinase activation. In the absence of Ca2+, GTPγS stimulated 35S incorporation from [35S]ATPγS into the myosin targeting subunit of MLCP (MYPT). The enhanced thiophosphorylation was inhibited by HA1077. No thiophosphorylation of LC20 was detected. These results indicate that ROK mediates agonist‐induced increases in myosin phosphorylation and force by inhibiting MLCP activity through phosphorylation of MYPT. Under Ca2+‐free conditions, ROK does not appear to phosphorylate LC20in situ, in contrast to its ability to phosphorylate myosin in vitro. In particular, ROK activation is essential for the tonic phase of agonist‐induced contraction.
Noise Analysis and Different Denoising Techniques of ECG Signal - A Survey

ECG signal is a biomedical signal that gives information about the electrical activities of the heart. ECG signal is corrupted by different noises of high frequencies and low frequencies and that may lead wrong interpretations, therefore in this study different noises like power line interference, channel noise, baseline wander, Electromyogram (EMG) Noise, electrode contact noise, and motion artifacts are analyzed. This paper also focuses on certain techniques for denoising of ECG signal. Keywords- Electrocardiogram (ECG), Denoising techniques, Empirical mode decomposition (EMD), DWT, Filtering Techniques, Filtered Residue method, Signal to Error Ratio (SER), Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). I. INTRODUCTION The ECG records the electrical activity of the heart, where each heart beat is displayed as a series of electrical waves. ECG signal conveys information about structure and function of heart. Normally, the frequency range of an ECG signal is of 0.05-100 Hz and its dynamic range of 1-10 mV. The ECG signal is characterized by five peaks and valleys labelled by the letters P, Q, R, S, T. There is a U wave in ECG signal which is having a very low amplitude or even more often is absent. Mainly an ECG tracing is a repeating cycle of three electrical entities: a P wave ( atrial depolarization), a QRS complex (ventricular depolarization) and a T wave (ventricular repolarization).
Value of reflux diagnostic questionnaire in the diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the value of the reflux diagnostic questionnaire (RDQ) in the diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). METHODS One hundred and twenty-eight patients with heartburn, substernal pain, acid reflux and regurgitation in 10 hospitals in China were assessed. Each symptom was scored according to severity and frequency (five scales). The highest score was 40. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and 24-h esophageal pH monitoring were carried out in patients with symptom scores of more than six, and results were compared with the RDQ score to determine the critical value for diagnosis of GERD. RESULTS The RDQ score correlated positively with the severity of reflux esophagitis. Esophageal pH monitoring showed that patients with abnormal RDQ had higher DeMeester scores compared with those with normal RDQ scores (20.18 vs 16.84). Taking 12 as the critical RDQ score for GERD, achieved a maximal Youden index. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.71, the true positive diagnostic rate was 88.07%, and the true negative diagnostic rate was 68.42% with a sensitivity of 94.12% and specificity of 50%. CONCLUSION The RDQ might be a useful screening test for GERD.
Neue Wege in der amerikanischen Geschichtswissenschaft

Das kleine Wörtchen „New" ist vielleicht eines der wichtigsten Schlagworte der for t schrittsbesessenen amerikanischen Gesellschaft. „Old" ist mit dem Makel des Minderwert i gen behaf te t , „New" jedoch garantiert Erfolg, Glück und — wichtigstes Element kapi ta listischer Gesellschaftsordnung — Umsatz. „New New New" steht über fast jeder amerikanischen Reklame, sei es fü r Autos, Kosmetika oder künstliche Blumen. Kein Wunder , daß dieser Kul t des Neuen auch geistige Bereiche nicht verschont ha t : die „New History" ist Schlachtruf einer jungen amerikanischen His tor ikergruppe geworden, und nachdem der Widerstand der alten, also minderwertigen Professoren erst einmal gebrochen war , hat die „New History" in allen Bereichen t r iumphier t , zumindest, wenn wir der Flut von Veröffentlichungen über dieses Thema Glauben schenken dürfen 1 . Worum geht es? Auf eine kurze Formel gebracht, ist das Ziel der verschiedenen Richtungen der „New History", die Geschichtswissenschaft mit Hi l fe sozialwissenschaftlicher Konzepte und Methoden auf eine methodologisch fortgeschrittenere Stufe zu heben. Dies Vorhaben ist nicht neu, und selbst der Firmenname des Unternehmens hat eine lange Tradi t ion, die bis vor den Ersten Weltkrieg zurückreicht. U m 1910 protestierte eine junge Generation gegen die Rankesche Tradi t ion des „wie es eigentlich gewesen", die durch das Studium amerikanischer Studenten in Deutschland und insbesondere durch Herbert B. Addams' Seminar an der Johns-Hopkins-Univers i tä t in amerikanischen His tor ikerkreisen dominant geworden war . ]. H. Robinsons 1911 veröffentlichtes Buch gab der neuen Richtung den N a m e n : The N e w His tory" 4 . Ihre Wor t führe r , zu denen in den 30er Jahren vor allem Carl Becker und Charles Beard gehörten , ha t ten vier Ziele:
[Mutation of NKX2-5 gene in patients with atrial septal defect].

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this investigation was to identify the novel genetic mutations in patients with a congenital atrial septal defect (ASD). METHODS Clinical data and blood specimens from a total of 12 unrelated ASD pedigrees and a cohort of 168 unrelated subjects with sporadic ASD were collected and evaluated in contrast to 200 healthy individuals. The whole exons and partial flanking introns of NKX2-5 gene were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and sequenced using the di-deoxynucleotide chain termination approach. The acquired sequences were aligned with those publicized in GenBank by the aid of programme BLAST to identify the sequence variations. The software ClustalW was applied for analysis of the conservative of the altered amino acids. RESULTS A novel heterozygous mutation of NKX2-5 gene, i.e., a substitution of thymine for cytosine at nucleotide 536, predicting the conversion of serine into phenylalanine at amino acid residue 179, was identified initially in a proband. The same missense mutation was thereafter detected in other 3 affected members of the identical family but neither in the healthy members of the kindred nor in the 200 normal controls. A cross-species alignment of the protein sequences encoded by NKX2-5 gene displayed that the mutated amino acid was highly conserved evolutionarily. No mutation of NKX2-5 gene was observed in the other 11 ASD pedigrees or in 168 patients with sporadic ASD. Additionally, a common synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism, a transition of adenine (A) into guanine (G) at nucleotide 63, was found in NKX2-5 gene. However, there were no significant differences in the prevalence of alleles A and G between ASD patients and healthy controls (chi(2) = 2.8641, P = 0.0906). CONCLUSION A novel mutation of NKX2-5 gene identified in an ASD family suggests that mutated NKX2-5 gene is responsible for familial ASD.
Increased lipogenesis, induced by AKT-mTORC1-RPS6 signaling, promotes development of human hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND & AIMS De novo lipogenesis is believed to be involved in oncogenesis. We investigated the role of aberrant lipid biosynthesis in the pathogenesis of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS We evaluated expression of enzymes that regulate lipogenesis in human normal liver tissues and HCC and surrounding, nontumor, liver tissues from patients using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, immunoblotting, immunohistochemistry, and biochemical assays. Effects of lipogenic enzymes on human HCC cell lines were evaluated using inhibitors and overexpression experiments. The lipogenic role of the proto-oncogene AKT was assessed in vitro and in vivo. RESULTS In human liver samples, de novo lipogenesis was progressively induced from nontumorous liver tissue toward the HCC. Extent of aberrant lipogenesis correlated with clinical aggressiveness, activation of the AKT-mammalian target of rapamycin signaling pathway, and suppression of adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinases. In HCC cell lines, the AKT-mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1-ribosomal protein S6 pathway promoted lipogenesis via transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms that included inhibition of fatty acid synthase ubiquitination by the USP2a de-ubiquitinase and disruption of the SREBP1 and SREBP2 degradation complexes. Suppression of the genes adenosine triphosphate citrate lyase, acetyl-CoA carboxylase, fatty acid synthase, stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1, or sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1, which are involved in lipogenesis, reduced proliferation, and survival of HCC cell lines and AKT-dependent cell proliferation. Overexpression of an activated form of AKT in livers of mice induced lipogenesis and tumor development. CONCLUSIONS De novo lipogenesis has pathogenic and prognostic significance for HCC. Inhibitors of lipogenic signaling, including those that inhibit the AKT pathway, might be useful as therapeutics for patients with liver cancer.
Spectral imaging of the retina

Spectral imaging of the retina shows great promise for the early detection of retinal disease through retinal screening programs. Implementation of such a program will require instrumentation capable of efficiently recording the requisite spectral data cube. We report on the development of two candidate approaches: one employs a traditional liquid crystal tunable filter to filter the illumination source and enable the spectral data cube to be assembled from mutually coregistered narrow-band images recorded in time sequence: the second employs, IRIS, a novel image replicating imaging spectrometer to record a two-dimensional spectral data cube in a single snapshot.
Class-Dependent Discretization for Inductive Learning from Continuous and Mixed-Mode Data

Inductive learning systems can be effectively used to acquire classification knowledge from examples. Many existing symbolic learning algorithms can be applied in domains with continuous attributes when integrated with a discretization algorithm to transform the continuous attributes into ordered discrete ones. In this paper, a new information theoretic discretization method optimized for supervised learning is proposed and described. This approach seeks to maximize the mutual dependence as measured by the interdependence redundancy between the discrete intervals and the class labels, and can automatically determine the most preferred number of intervals for an inductive learning application. The method has been tested in a number of inductive learning examples to show that the class-dependent discretizer can significantly improve the classification performance of many existing learning algorithms in domains containing numeric attributes. >
Shape Codification Indexing and Retrieval Using the Quad-Tree Structure

The author presents in this paper a new approach for indexing and Content-based image retrieval based on the Quad-tree structure. The 3D objects are represented by their silhouettes and codified following the filling rate of each quadrant at different levels of the quad-tree subdivision. The author proposes a modified linear codification for silhouettes, this method improves the processing time because, in opposite to the traditional algorithms, the author's algorithm has not a processing time that is proportional to the number of pixels in the image. As the same descriptor may characterize a set of different shapes, the author proposes also, efficient similarity measures to distinguish different objects having the same index in order to apply the approach to the retrieval process.
Ash iron mobilization through physicochemical processing in volcanic eruption plumes: a numerical modeling approach

Abstract. It has been shown that volcanic ash fertilizes the Fe-limited areas of the surface ocean through releasing soluble iron. As ash iron is mostly insoluble upon the eruption, it is hypothesized that heterogeneous in-plume and in-cloud processing of the ash promote the iron solubilization. Direct evidences concerning such processes are, however, lacking. In this study, a 1-D numerical model is developed to simulate the physicochemical interactions of the gas–ash–aerosol in volcanic eruption plumes focusing on the iron mobilization processes at temperatures between 600 and 0 °C. Results show that sulfuric acid and water vapor condense at ~ 150 and ~ 50 °C on the ash surface, respectively. This liquid phase then efficiently scavenges the surrounding gases (> 95 % of HCl, 3–20 % of SO 2 and 12–62 % of HF) forming an extremely acidic coating at the ash surface. The low pH conditions of the aqueous film promote acid-mediated dissolution of the Fe-bearing phases present in the ash material. We estimate that 0.1–33 % of the total iron available at the ash surface is dissolved in the aqueous phase before the freezing point is reached. The efficiency of dissolution is controlled by the halogen content of the erupted gas as well as the mineralogy of the iron at ash surface: elevated halogen concentrations and presence of Fe 2+ -carrying phases lead to the highest dissolution efficiency. Findings of this study are in agreement with the data obtained through leaching experiments.
Quality of life during active treatment for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia

The objectives of the study were to describe quality of life (QoL), identify predictors of worse QoL and examine QoL during different phases of active therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). A multiinstitutional cross‐sectional study was performed in children with ALL. We included children at least 2 months from diagnosis who were receiving treatment in first remission. Parents described QoL using the PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scales and the PedsQL 3.0 Acute Cancer Module. The 206 children on treatment for ALL had overall [median 62.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) 34.8–94.4], physical (median 62.5, 95% CI 18.8–100.0) and psychosocial (median 65.4, 95% CI 38.3–94.2) summary scores that were one to two standard deviations lower than population norms. In high‐risk ALL, girls and older children had worse QoL. In standard‐risk ALL, those with lower household incomes and unmarried parents had worse QoL. QoL scores were generally constant across phases of ALL therapy. Children on therapy for ALL have lower QoL compared to healthy children. Age and gender predicted QoL in high‐risk ALL, whereas socioeconomics predicted QoL in standard‐risk ALL. Future efforts should focus on longitudinal studies that describe QoL over time within individual patients.