Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generalizability of health economic evaluations : methods for multinational patient-level studies

Background: Cost-effectiveness outcomes collected in multinational health economic studies may vary across countries and geographic areas due to numerous clinical and socioeconomic factors. The between-country variability poses the question of generalizability of the cost-effectiveness estimates, i.e. applicability of the trial-wide results for the decision-making in particular jurisdiction. Objectives: The purpose of this research is to illustrate how selected methods can improve generalizability of the results of patient-level health economic studies by a) exploring between-country variability in incremental costs, effectiveness and resource use, b) calculation of trial-wide and country-level incremental cost, effectiveness and resource use while accounting for patient- and country-level covariates, and c) assessing the potential of covariates to predict cost and effectiveness estimates for the settings outside the study. Methods: Review of published health-economic evidence and international HTA guidelines was conducted to evaluate applied or recommended methods and analytical strategies to improve generalizability of the health economic outcomes. In the case study, qualitative and quantitative homogeneity test by Simon and Gail is used to explore between-country heterogeneity of the treatment effects measured by incremental costs, effectiveness, resource use (length of hospitalization) and incremental net monetary benefit. Hierarchical modelling is applied to calculate trial-wide and country-level estimates, while accounting for clustering and incorporating country- and patient-level covariates. Results: Simon and Gail test indicated qualitative homogeneity for incremental effectiveness, costs, length of hospitalization and net monetary benefit between treatment and control arms. Trial-wide and country-level mean incremental costs and effectiveness were estimated using hierarchical models with and without covariates. Results of hierarchical modelling suggested, that new treatment was more efficacious, saved costs and resource use in majority of the countries. Conclusions: Homogeneity test and hierarchical models are complementary methods to explore heterogeneity and to estimate trial-wide and country-level parameters for cost-effectiveness analysis. Hierarchical models allow for country-level estimates and adjustment for covariates. In the case study the patient-level covariates showed effect on incremental cost and effectiveness; country-level covariates had very small impact on estimates. The use of country-level covariates as predictors for incremental cost and resource use to improve generalizability of health economic studies beyond the study setting merits further investigation.
Gaussian Backend design for open-set language detection

This paper proposes a new approach to the challenging open-set language detection task. Most state-of-the-art approaches make use of data sources with several out-of-set languages to model such languages. In the proposed approach, no additional data from out-ofset languages is required, only date from the target languages is used. Experiments are conducted using the LRE-05 and the LRE-07 evaluation data sets with the 30s condition. A Cavg of 4.5% and 3.4% is obtained on these data set, respectively. These results are comparable with other reported results.
Detection–Estimation of Very Close Emitters: Performance Breakdown, Ambiguity, and General Statistical Analysis of Maximum-Likelihood Estimation

We reexamine the well-known problem of “threshold behavior” or “performance breakdown” in the detection-estimation of very closely spaced emitters. In this extreme regime, we analyze the performance for maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) of directions-of-arrival (DOA) for two close Gaussian sources over the range of sample volumes and signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) where the correct number of sources is reliably estimated by information-theoretic criteria (ITC), but where one of the DOA estimates is severely erroneous (“outlier”). We show that random matrix theory (RMT) applied to the evaluation of theoretical MLE performance gives a relatively simple and accurate analytical description of the threshold behavior of MLE and ITC. In particular, the introduced “single-cluster” criterion provides accurate “ambiguity bounds” for the outliers.
Preserving the Privacy of Sensitive Relationships in Graph Data

Utilizing the Online Social Networks like Face-book etc were increased a lot in the recent years. These applications provides good interface to share the data to people on the internet. This will provide an advantage to the attackers to gather user’s personnel information. We propose a new approach to protect the user’s data even the shared link is visible to malicious users. The proposed algorithm uses sanitizing techniques to hide the user’s data. Graph theory is used to find the growth of the shared data on Online Social Networks. Our method will not disturb the actual relationships and provides the basic details to the relations.
A superfamily of conserved domains in DNA damage‐ responsive cell cycle checkpoint proteins

Computer analysis of a conserved domain, BRCT, first described at the carboxyl ter‐minus of the breast cancer protein BRCA1, a p53 binding protein (53BP1), and the yeast cell cycle checkpoint protein RAD9 revealed a large super‐ family of domains that occur predominantly in proteins involved in cell cycle checkpoint functions responsive to DNA damage. The BRCT domain consists of ~95 amino acid residues and occurs as a tandem repeat at the carboxyl terminus of numerous proteins, but has been observed also as a tandem repeat at the amino terminus or as a single copy. The BRCT superfamily presently includes ~40 nonorthologous proteins, namely, BRCA1, 53BP1, and RAD9; a protein family that consists of the fission yeast replication checkpoint protein Rad4, the oncoprotein ECT2, the DNA repair protein XRCC1, and yeast DNA polymerase subunit DPB11; DNA binding enzymes such as terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferases, deoxycy‐ tidyl transferase involved in DNA repair, and DNA‐ligases III and IV; yeast multifunctional transcription factor RAP1; and several uncharacterized gene products. Another previously described domain that is shared by bacterial NAD‐dependent DNA‐ligases, the large subunits of eukaryotic replication factor C, and poly(ADP‐ri‐ bose) polymerases appears to be a distinct version of the BRCT domain. The retinoblastoma protein (a universal tumor suppressor) and related proteins may contain a distant relative of the BRCT domain. Despite the functional diversity of all these proteins, participation in DNA damage‐re‐ sponsive checkpoints appears to be a unifying theme. Thus, the BRCT domain is likely to perform critical, yet uncharacterized, functions in the cell cycle control of organisms from bacteria to humans. The car boxyterminal BRCT domain of BRCA1 corresponds precisely to the recently identified minimal transcription activation domain of this protein, indicating one such function. — Bork, P., Hofmann, K. , Bucher, P., Neuwald, A. F. , Altschul, S. F. , Koonin, E. V. A superfamily of conserved domains in DNA damage‐responsive cell cycle checkpoint proteins. FASEB J. 11, 68‐ 76 (1997)
What are the highly important and desirable patient engagement actions for self-care as perceived by individuals living in the southern United States?

Aim This exploratory survey study aimed to identify patient engagement actions that are the most frequently named as being highly important (top 30 by importance) or ones that they want to do (top 30 by desire) for community-dwelling adult patients living in the southern United States. Items not making the list of the top 30 by ability were also identified. Background Patient engagement is still an ambiguous term among population health and health care professionals in the United States as we lack a clear understanding of what it entails. Methods This 2015–2016 study used convenience sampling to recruit subjects in a university’s student health service department and in eight senior centers. Two hundred and fifty adult patients older than 18 years in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee participated in the study (82% response rate). A 57-item inventory, “The Patient Action Inventory for Self-Care,” was developed and used to ascertain patients’ self-designated preferences and capabilities in order to understand their needs for education and support. Results Respondents included 159 (63.6%) women, 62 (24.8%) men, and 29 (11.6%) who did not indicate their gender. Combining the list of the top 30 importance items and the list of the top 30 desired items yielded a list of 35 items; noteworthy is the fact that the list of the top 30 ability actions contained nine items that were not found in a previously mentioned list of 35 high-ranking importance and desired items. This study validated the necessity of analyzing patient engagement actions by importance, desirability, and ability to accomplish it. These three levels are distinct from each other. Conclusion Nurses may use future versions of the inventory to assist patients in identifying self-care actions to engage in. Use of the inventory will demonstrate respect for patients’ preferences and may thus improve engagement.
Pertussis toxin and the adenylate cyclase toxin from Bordetella pertussis activate human monocyte‐derived dendritic cells and dominantly inhibit cytokine production through a cAMP‐dependent pathway

Pertussis toxin (PT) and adenylate cyclase toxin (AT) are AB enterotoxins produced by Bordetella pertussis. PT is a powerful mucosal adjuvant whose cellular target and mechanism of action are unknown; however, emerging evidence suggests that dendritic cells (DC) may be a principal adjuvant target of PT. Here, we investigate the mechanism underlying the effects of these toxins on human monocyte‐derived DC (MDDC) in vitro. We found that the effects of PT and AT on MDDC, including maturation, are mediated by cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). In this regard, adenosine 5′‐diphosphate‐ribosylation‐defective derivatives of PT failed to induce maturation of MDDC, whereas dibutyryl‐cAMP (d‐cAMP) and Forskolin mimic the maturation of MDDC and dominant inhibition of cytokine production induced by these toxins. Also, cAMP‐dependent kinase inhibitors blocked the ability of PT, AT, d‐cAMP, and Forskolin to activate MDDC. Taken together, these results show that the effects of PT and AT on MDDC are mediated strictly by cAMP.
Using Self-Organizing Maps for Sentiment Analysis

Web 2.0 services have enabled people to express their opinions, experience and feelings in the form of user-generated content. Sentiment analysis or opinion mining involves identifying, classifying and aggregating opinions as per their positive or negative polarity. This paper investigates the efficacy of different implementations of Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) for sentiment based visualization and classification of online reviews. Specifically, this paper implements the SOM algorithm for both supervised and unsupervised learning from text documents. The unsupervised SOM algorithm is implemented for sentiment based visualization and classification tasks. For supervised sentiment analysis, a competitive learning algorithm known as Learning Vector Quantization is used. Both algorithms are also compared with their respective multi-pass implementations where a quick rough ordering pass is followed by a fine tuning pass. The experimental results on the online movie review data set show that SOMs are well suited for sentiment based classification and sentiment polarity visualization.
Transcriptional regulation by BglJ–RcsB, a pleiotropic heteromeric activator in Escherichia coli

The bacterial Rcs phosphorelay signals perturbations of the bacterial cell envelope to its response regulator RcsB, which regulates transcription of multiple loci related to motility, biofilm formation and various stress responses. RcsB is unique, as its set of target loci is modulated by interaction with auxiliary regulators including BglJ. The BglJ–RcsB heteromer is known to activate the HNS repressed leuO and bgl loci independent of RcsB phosphorylation. Here, we show that BglJ–RcsB activates the promoters of 10 additional loci (chiA, molR, sfsB, yecT, yqhG, ygiZ, yidL, ykiA, ynbA and ynjI). Furthermore, we mapped the BglJ–RcsB binding site at seven loci and propose a consensus sequence motif. The data suggest that activation by BglJ–RcsB is DNA phasing dependent at some loci, a feature reminiscent of canonical transcriptional activators, while at other loci BglJ–RcsB activation may be indirect by inhibition of HNS-mediated repression. In addition, we show that BglJ–RcsB activates transcription of bgl synergistically with CRP where it shifts the transcription start by 20 bp from a position typical for class I CRP-dependent promoters to a position typical for class II CRP-dependent promoters. Thus, BglJ–RcsB is a pleiotropic transcriptional activator that coordinates regulation with global regulators including CRP, LeuO and HNS.
Metabolic Impact of Anti-Angiogenic Agents on U87 Glioma Cells

Background Glioma cells not only secrete high levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) but also express VEGF receptors (VEGFR), supporting the existence of an autocrine loop. The direct impact on glioma cells metabolism of drugs targeting the VEGF pathway, such as Bevacizumab (Bev) or VEGFR Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor (TKI), is poorly known. Material and Methods U87 cells were treated with Bev or SU1498, a selective VEGFR2 TKI. VEGFR expression was checked with FACS flow cytometry and Quantitative Real-Time PCR. VEGF secretion into the medium was assessed with an ELISA kit. Metabolomic studies on cells were performed using High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning Spectroscopy (HR-MAS). Results U87 cells secreted VEGF and expressed low level of VEGFR2, but no detectable VEGFR1. Exposure to SU1498, but not Bev, significantly impacted cell proliferation and apoptosis. Metabolomic studies with HR MAS showed that Bev had no significant effect on cell metabolism, while SU1498 induced a marked increase in lipids and a decrease in glycerophosphocholine. Accordingly, accumulation of lipid droplets was seen in the cytoplasm of SU1498-treated U87 cells. Conclusion Although both drugs target the VEGF pathway, only SU1498 showed a clear impact on cell proliferation, cell morphology and metabolism. Bevacizumab is thus less likely to modify glioma cells phenotype due to a direct therapeutic pressure on the VEGF autocrine loop. In patients treated with VEGFR TKI, monitoring lipids with magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) might be a valuable marker to assess drug cytotoxicity.
Experimental Analysis of TCP and UDP Traffic Performance over Infra-structured 802.11b WLANs

In this paper we present the results of experiments carried out in an infra-structured 802.11b WLAN comprising a single Access Point (AP) and a number of user terminals. The aim of this work is twofold: by the one hand, we validate well-known ? TCP (UDP) over 802.11? analytic models by means of experimental results; by the other hand, we focus our analysis on TCP behavior over 802.11b. We present results about flow fairness, about interaction between WLAN link layer parameters (ARQ) and transport protocols and about TCP flows traffic characteristics. With respect to earlier related works, an added value of our analysis is given by a more accurate knowledge and control of key parameters that highly affect the system performance (e.g., mobile station transmission bitrate, maximum number of retransmission attempts, TCP version, etc.) that guarantees the reliability of numerical results. This is a key issue in order to confidently explain observed experimental phenomena.
The Quantum Moment Problem and Bounds on Entangled Multi-prover Games

We study the quantum moment problem: given a conditional probability distribution together with some polynomial constraints, does there exist a quantum state rho and a collection of measurement operators such that (i) the probability of obtaining a particular outcome when a particular measurement is performed on rho is specified by the conditional probability distribution, and (ii) the measurement operators satisfy the constraints. For example, the constraints might specify that some measurement operators must commute. We show that if an instance of the quantum moment problem is unsatisfiable, then there exists a certificate of a particular form proving this. Our proof is based on a recent result in algebraic geometry, the noncommutative Positivstellensatz of Helton and McCullough [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. , 356(9):3721, 2004]. A special case of the quantum moment problem is to compute the value of one-round multi-prover games with entangled provers. Under the conjecture that the provers need only share states in finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, we prove that a hierarchy of semidefinite programs similar to the one given by Navascues, Pironioand Acin [Phys. Rev. Lett. , 98:010401, 2007] converges to the entangled value of the game. Under this conjecture, it would follow that the languages recognized by a multi-prover interactive proof system where the provers share entanglement are recursive.
Simple rating scale formats: exploring extreme response

Rating measurement methods represent one of the most popular and easily applied datacollection methods in marketing and social science research. These methods use rating scales, which are a type of closed-end question whose response alternatives are graduated or organised to measure a continuous construct such as an attitude, opinion, intention, perception or preference (Peterson 2000, p. 61). Rating scales come in 'all shapes and sizes'. For example, some of the many possible alternative scales for measuring one construct – such as, for instance, 'effectiveness' – include a seven-point numerical scale anchored by adjectives like 'completely effective' to 'completely ineffective', a percentage scale presented in either a continuous format (e.g. 0% to 100%) or in a categorical fashion (e.g. 91%–100%, 81%–90%, 71%–80%, and so forth), or measures containing various degrees of verbal categories, like 'very effective', 'somewhat effective', 'somewhat ineffective' and 'very ineffective'.
Equity Market Timing and Subsequent Delisting Likelihood

Timing the market for equity is an accepted practice by managers who in theory have the best interests of current shareholders in mind. It is clear that by using their superior information, managers can indeed successfully issue overvalued equity to the new shareholders. Recent research has determined that some firms do well after a market timed issue, while others underperform. The post-issue performance is linked to the investment opportunity set of the issuing firms as well as their choice of investments. In general, firms without good investment options will perform poorly. We extend this line of research by studying the post-issue delisting pattern of market timing firms and the two subsets. Specifically, we research whether firms that mistakenly time the market for equity are more likely to compromise their future and get delisted (through acquisitions, bankruptcies etc.) in the immediate future than those firms that have a use for the funds. Using logistic regression models, we show that firms that are market timing firms and that lack good investment opportunities are indeed more likely to get delisted; strengthening the growing argument that equity market timing does not always result in shareholder benefit.
Large scale global optimization using self-adaptive differential evolution algorithm

In this paper we present self-adaptive differential evolution algorithm jDElsgo on large scale global optimization. The experimental results obtained by our algorithm on benchmark functions provided for the CEC 2010 competition and special session on Large Scale Global Optimization are presented. The experiments were performed on 20 benchmark functions with high dimension D = 1000. Obtained results show that our algorithm performs highly competitive in comparison with the DECC-G∗, DECC-G and MLCC algorithms.
Preventing violent civil conflict: the scope and limits of government action

In this paper, the author provides a review of the scope and limits for government and international action to prevent the outbreak of civil war. It includes a brief review of the literature on violent conflict indicators and identifies the most significant predictors of civil war outbreak. The author focuses on models and empirical approaches used by World Bank-related research on conflict. In the paper, four strategies are examined: redistribution to reduce prevailing inequities; political decentralization; secession or partition; and multidimensional peace building. The paper provides a synthesis of available knowledge on the topic of organized political violence, focusing on the World Bank's work in the area of conflict analysis and conflict prevention and linking that work with the literature on secession, decentralization, and international intervention in civil wars.
A hybrid discontinuous modulation technique to influence the switching losses of three phase inverters

This paper presents a modulation technique, which combines the known space-vector-pulse-width-modulation (SVPWM) and the discontinuous-pulse-width-modulation (DPWM). This enables the possibility to set the switching losses freely within a certain border band. A possible area of application is the reliability of IGBT-inverters modules, where junction temperature swings can be reduced by influencing the power losses. The functionality is underlined by the analytical derivation of the switching and conduction mean power loss equations which are verified by measurements in certain operation points.
A new method of measuring the cluster peculiar velocity power spectrum

We propose to use spatial correlations of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (KSZ) flux as an estimator of the peculiar velocity power spectrum. In contrast with conventional techniques, our new method does not require measurements of the thermal SZ signal or the X-ray temperature. Moreover, this method has the special advantage that the expected systematic errors are always subdominant to statistical errors on all scales and redshifts of interest. We show that future large sky coverage KSZ surveys may allow a peculiar velocity power spectrum estimates of an accuracy reaching similar to 10 per cent.
Security guaranteed wireless communication over common noise attack under spatial assumption

We assume that Eve and Bob are connected to Alice with additive white Gaussian noise channel, and their noises are correlated. We allow Eve to optimize the correlation between her noise generated outside her detector, which is called the common noise attack. We give a necessarily and sufficient condition to generate the agreed secure key between Alice and Bob over the common noise attack under a spatial condition for Eve. Further, we give a concrete protocol with the reverse reconciliation to generate secure final keys whose leaked information is rigorously and quantitatively guaranteed even with finite block-length code. Based on the method of post selection, we discuss the security when Eve inserts artificial noise. We also consider how Bob can improve their key generation rate by inserting artificial noise to Eve's observation.
Psi shaped metamaterial loaded antenna for Wireless applications

This paper deals with the comparative analysis of patch antenna loaded with Mu negative (MNG) metamaterial on RT-Duroid 5880 substrate. In order to realize a μ-negative (MNG) material, artificial magnetic materials i.e, Psi shaped Split Ring Resonator(SRR) is designed and incorporated on patch. When an MNG material is included with patch antenna, the results of proposed structure shows better performance compared to conventional patch antenna. Simulation results of proposed antenna structure are carried out using Ansoft's HFSS software, which is based on Finite Element Method (FEM). The proposed antenna loaded with artificial magnetic materials (SRR) contributes for Wireless applications.