Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Platelet Count and Survival in Patients with Colorectal Cancer – a Preliminary Study

Summary In a previous report we found an inverse correlation between pre-operative platelet count (PlC) levels and the risk of post-operative pulmonary embolism in patients undergoing hip surgery. In the present study, we prospectively evaluated the prognostic significance of pre-operative PlC levels on survival in 180 consecutive patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer. Other major clinicopathological parameters studied were age, gender, Dukes’ stage, duration of surgery, pre-operative haemoglobin levels and transfusion requirements. There were no significant differences in mean pre-operative PlC levels according to tumor stage. Thirty-three patients (18%) died during follow-up (3-23 months, median: 13 months). Univariate analysis (Kaplan-Meier estimates) showed that advanced tumor stage (p <0.001), duration of surgery (p <0.05) and a high pre-operative PlC level (p <0.001) were significantly associated to a poor survival. The multivariate Cox analysis revealed that tumor stage (RR:5.734; 95%C.I.: 2.644-12.44), a high pre-operative PlC level (RR: 2.467; 95%C.I.: 1.117-5.452), and to a lesser extent the patients’ age remained independent prognostic variables for mortality. The findings of this preliminary study may be of interest from the point of view of pathogenesis, but also clinically, since they might be used in the decision as to which patients or groups of patients should receive more aggressive therapeutic intervention.
Image Denoising Based on Fuzzy in Wavelet Domain

Commonly, wavelet coefficients of image are modeled as zero-mean Gaussian random variable with high local correlation. The variance estimation of wavelet coefficients is the key to get better performance for image denoising. In this paper, a fuzzy function is defined for the local variance estimation of wavelet coefficients. Based on this fuzzy function, the variance is estimated adoptively following the local feature of image. Experiments show that the proposed method has better performance in noise suppression and edges preservation, compared with other denoising methods
Novel Dual-Mode Balun Bandpass Filters Using Single Cross-Slotted Patch Resonator

In this letter, a novel dual-mode bandpass balun filter is presented using a miniaturized cross-slotted patch resonator. This balun filter consists of a single slit-loaded patch etched by a pair of cross slots and a stepped-impedance open stub. An unbalanced input port is orthogonally arranged in-between two balanced output ports along the patch, and each feed line is connected to an additional stub for enhanced coupling. Due to the dual-mode characteristic of the patch resonator, two transmission poles can be easily constructed at both balanced passbands. Asymmetrical width and length of the cross-loaded slots perturb the field of the patch and excite two degenerate modes simultaneously, while the attached open-circuited stub provides an additional degree of freedom for performance tuning. Finally, two prototype balun filters are designed and fabricated at 3.48 and 1.80 GHz, respectively. Measured results achieve good filtering and balun performance and agree well with those from simulations.
College Student Retention: When Do We Losing Them?

One of the long term goals of any college or university is increasing the student retention. The negative impact of student dropout are clear to students, parents, universities and society. The positive effect of decreasing student attrition is also self-evident including higher chance of having a better career and higher standard of life for college graduate. In view of these reasons, directors in higher education feel increasingly pressurized to outline and implement strategies to increase student retention. In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of the student attrition problem and use statistical methods to predict when students are going to dropout from school using real case data. Our work has a number of advantages with the potential of being employed by higher education administrator of universities. We take advantage of multiple kinds of information about different aspects of student's characteristic and efficiently utilize them to make a personalized decision about the risk of dropout for a particular student.
A new class of integrated CMOS rectifiers with improved PVT-compensated efficiency

We review in this paper a new class of integrated CMOS rectifiers with improved PVT-compensated efficiency and propose also a new voltage quadrupler. By utilizing a threshold compensation technique, the presented circuits are able to achieve both high voltage conversion efficiency (VCE) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) with only standard threshold devices at low input amplitudes. Besides, the performance of the rectifiers is selfcompensated over process and temperature, which is achieved by precisely tracking the diode threshold drift with an auxiliary dummy. The rectifiers are implemented in AMS 0. 35μm 4M/2P standard CMOS process and the simulated performance is shown at an input frequency of 13.56MHz. For the proposed voltage quadrupler, at 0.8V input amplitude and 2kΩ load resistor, output voltage of 1.52V can be achieved with VCE and PCE of 48% and 49%, respectively. As compared to previously published results, the improvement is up to 358% in VCE and 351% in PCE. Besides, the maximum deviation in its output voltage is as low as 162mV over 100°C temperature span, which outperforms the conventional structure by almost an order of magnitude.
Portfolio risk measurement via stochastic mesh

We propose a stochastic mesh approach to portfolio risk measurement under the nested setting in which revaluation of the portfolio value requires simulations. While stochastic mesh was originally proposed as a tool for American option pricing, we are interested in estimating via simulation the risk of the portfolio. We establish asymptotic properties of the stochastic mesh estimator for portfolio risk. In particular, we show that the estimator is asymptotically unbiased and consistent, and its mean squared error (MSE) converges to zero in a rate of Γ−1, where Γ is the effort required to simulate the sample paths. This rate of convergence is the same as that under the non-nested setting. The proposed method allows for path dependence of financial instruments in the portfolio. Preliminary numerical experiments show that the proposed method works reasonably well.
Antitumour activity of melatonin in a mouse model of human prostate cancer: relationship with hypoxia signalling

Melatonin is known to exert antitumour activity in several types of human cancers, but the underlying mechanisms as well as the efficacy of different doses of melatonin are not well defined. Here, we test the hypothesis whether melatonin in the nanomolar range is effective in exerting antitumour activity in vivo and examine the correlation with the hypoxia signalling mechanism, which may be a major molecular mechanism by which melatonin antagonizes cancer. To test this hypothesis, LNCaP human prostate cancer cells were xenografted into seven‐wk‐old Foxn1nu/nu male mice that were treated with melatonin (18 i.p. injections of 1 mg/kg in 41 days). Saline‐treated mice served as control. We found that the melatonin levels in plasma and xenografted tissue were 4× and 60× higher, respectively, than in control samples. Melatonin tended to restore the redox imbalance by increasing expression of Nrf2. As part of the phenotypic response to these perturbations, xenograft microvessel density was less in melatonin‐treated animals, indicative of lower angiogenesis, and the xenograft growth rate was slower (P < 0.0001). These changes were accompanied by a reduced expression of Ki67, elevated expression of HIF‐1α and increased phosphorylation of Akt in melatonin than saline‐treated mice. We conclude that the beneficial effect of melatonin in reducing cancer growth in vivo was evident at melatonin plasma levels as low as 4 nm and was associated with decreased angiogenesis. Higher HIF‐1α expression in xenograft tissue indicates that the antitumour effect cannot be due to a postulated antihypoxic effect, but may stem from lower angiogenesis potential.
Impairment in emotion recognition abilities in patients with mild cognitive impairment, early and moderate Alzheimer disease compared with healthy comparison subjects.

OBJECTIVE To investigate emotion discrimination abilities in healthy comparison subjects, patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), early and moderate Alzheimer disease (AD). DESIGN Prospective study design. SETTING Outpatient memory clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Innsbruck, Austria. METHODS One hundred forty-one subjects older than 60 years were included in the study. Thirty-five subjects were classified as healthy comparison subjects, 51 subjects as MCI (21 subjects with amnestic MCI single domain, 31 subjects with amnestic MCI multiple domain), 32 subjects with early AD and 23 subjects with moderate AD. MEASUREMENTS All subjects were tested on an extensive neuropsychological test battery including the Penn Emotion Recognition Tests and depression symptoms were assessed additionally. RESULTS Healthy subjects and patients with MCI, early and moderate AD differed significantly in the recognition of all emotions and neutral faces combined. When separated by emotion, the authors found significant differences in emotion recognition between the diagnostic groups for happy, sad, fearful, and neutral faces. Compared with comparison subjects, amnestic MCI patients single domain did not differ significantly in their emotion recognition abilities, but amnestic MCI multiple domain patients were already impaired in the recognition of overall emotions, sad, fearful, and neutral faces and the deficits increased with the severity of AD. Depression had a significant influence on the recognition of overall emotion and neutral faces and increased the probability of misinterpreting neutral faces as sad leading to a negative bias. CONCLUSIONS Diminished abilities for emotion discrimination are already present in patients with MCI and further decreased with AD progression.
A Genetic Fuzzy Linguistic Combination Method for Fuzzy Rule-Based Multiclassifiers

Fuzzy set theory has been widely and successfully used as a mathematical tool to combine the outputs provided by the individual classifiers in a multiclassification system by means of a fuzzy aggregation operator. However, to the best of our knowledge, no fuzzy combination method has been proposed, which is composed of a fuzzy rule-based system. We think this can be a very promising research line as it allows us to benefit from the key advantage of fuzzy systems, i.e., their interpretability. By using a fuzzy linguistic rule-based classification system as a combination method, the resulting classifier ensemble would show a hierarchical structure, and the operation of the latter component would be transparent to the user. Moreover, for the specific case of fuzzy multiclassification systems, the new approach could also become a smart way to allow standard fuzzy classifiers to deal with high-dimensional problems, avoiding the curse of dimensionality, as the chance to perform classifier selection at class level is also incorporated, into the method. We conduct comprehensive experiments considering 20 UCI datasets with different dimensionality, where our approach improves or at least maintains accuracy, while reducing complexity of the system, and provides some interpretability insight into the multiclassification system reasoning mechanism. The results obtained show that this approach is able to compete with the state-of-the-art multiclassification system selection and fusion methods in terms of accuracy, thus providing a good interpretability-accuracy tradeoff.
Influence of cerebral hemodynamics on stroke risk: One‐year follow‐up of 30 medically treated patients

The importance of hemodynamic factors in the pathogenesis and treatment of ischemic cerebrovascular disease is not clear. We have investigated the relationship between cerebral hemodynamics and the subsequent risk of stroke in 30 medically treated patients with symptomatic occlusion or greater than 75% intracranial stenosis of the carotid arterial system. Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to evaluate the regional hemodynamic status of the cerebral circulation. Clinical follow‐up to 1 year post‐PET was available for all patients. The incidence at 1 year of all strokes was 1/9 for patients with normal hemodynamics and 1/21 for patients with abnormal hemodynamics. The 1‐year incidence of ipsilateral ischemic stroke was 1/9 for hemodynamically normal patients and 0/21 in the abnormal group. The 21 patients in the abnormal group fulfilled entry criteria for the Extracranial‐Intracranial Bypass Trial. The 0/21 incidence of ipsilateral ischemic stroke at 1 year was compared with the 1‐year rate of 0.109 for the 714 medically treated patients from the Bypass Trial. We were able to reject with better than 90% certainty (p = 0.089) the hypothesis that our sample of patients came from a population with an ipsilateral ischemic stroke rate of 0.109 or greater. Thus, in this small sample, we found no evidence that PET evidence of abnormal cerebral hemodynamics identifies a subgroup of patients at higher risk for early stroke if treated medically with antithrombotic drugs.
Leverage, Cost of Capital and Bank Valuation

In this paper, we present a model that demonstrates the effect of debt on cost of capital and value in the case of banking firms. Using a static partial equilibrium setting, both in a steady state and steady growth scenario, we derive a bank-specific valuation metric which separately attributes value to assets and debt cash flows in the form of a liquidity premium and tax-shield. We run our model on a sample of the largest 26 European banks from 2003 to 2016 finding that the value contribution of debt benefits to enterprise value is large and persistent. Further from our model, we derived an implied cost of capital (ICC) measure finding consistent results with capital asset pricing model (CAPM). The theoretical framework we present is helpful to address bank debt benefits valuation and to reconcile equity and asset side approaches.
Breast cancer chemopreventive properties of pomegranate (Punica granatum) fruit extracts in a mouse mammary organ culture

We previously reported anticancer effects of pomegranate extracts in human breast cancer cells in vitro and also chemopreventive activity of pomegranate fermented juice polyphenols (W) in a mouse mammary organ culture (MMOC). In the present study we decided to expand the MMOC investigations to also include an evaluation of the potential chemopreventive efficacy of a purified chromatographic peak of W (Peak B), and also of whole pomegranate seed oil. In brief, an MMOC was established according to a known method. For the first 10 days of culture, the glands were treated with pomegranate fermented juice polyphenols (W), a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) peak separated from W (peak B), or pomegranate seed oil (Oil, and on day 3, exposed to the carcinogen 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA), and for 10 days treated with the putative pomegranate chemopreventive. The glands were subsequently harvested and tumours counted by visual inspection. While W effected a 42% reduction in the number of lesions compared with control, peak B and pomegranate seed oil each effected an 87% reduction. The results highlight enhanced breast cancer preventive potential both for the purified compound peak B and for pomegranate seed oil, both greater than that previously reported for pomegranate fermented juice polyphenols.
TCR-Like Human Antibodies Expressed on Human CTLs Mediate Antibody Affinity-Dependent Cytolytic Activity1

The permanent genetic programming via gene transfer of autologous T cells with cell surface receptors directed toward tumor-related Ags holds great promise for the development of more-specific tumor therapies. In this study we have explored the use of Abs directed to MHC-peptide complexes (or TCR-like Abs) to engraft CTLs with exquisite specificity for cancer cells. First, we affinity matured in vitro a previously selected TCR-like Ab, Fab-G8, which is highly specific for the peptide melanoma-associated Ag-A1 presented by the HLA-A1 molecule. A combination of L chain shuffling, H chain-targeted mutagenesis, and in vitro selection of phage display libraries yielded a Fab-G8 Ab derivative, Fab-Hyb3, with an 18-fold improved affinity yet identical peptide fine specificity. Fab-G8 and Fab-Hyb3 were expressed on primary human T lymphocytes as cell surface-anchored Fab, demonstrating that T cells expressing the high-affinity Fab-Hyb3 molecule eradicate tumor cells much more effectively. Furthermore, the gain in ligand-binding affinity resulted in a 2-log improvement in the detection of peptide/MHC complexes on melanoma-associated Ag-A1 peptide-loaded cells. In summary, an affinity-matured Ab specifically recognizing a cancer-related peptide/MHC complex was generated and used to improve the tumor cell killing capacity of human T cells. This strategy, based on engraftment of T cells with in vitro engineered Abs, is an attractive alternative to the laborious, and in many cases unsuccessful, generation of highly potent tumor-specific T lymphocytes.
A two-year pilot trial of hydroxyurea in very young children with sickle-cell anemia.

OBJECTIVE Hydroxyurea improves hematologic values and decreases vaso-occlusive complications in adults and children with sickle cell anemia (SCA), but has not been tested in infants before the onset of chronic organ dysfunction. We conducted a collaborative pilot trial of hydroxyurea in infants with SCA to assess its (1) feasibility of administration, (2) toxicity, (3) hematologic effects, and (4) effect on spleen function. STUDY DESIGN Patients with hemoglobin (Hb) SS or Sbeta(0) thalassemia (n = 28, median age 15 months) received hydroxyurea for 2 years at 20 mg/kg/day. Hydroxyurea was temporarily discontinued for predefined toxicity. RESULTS Seven patients exited the study early: five for noncompliance or refusal to continue, one for mild stroke, and one for fatal splenic sequestration. The predominant toxicity was transient neutropenia, which was usually associated with a viral-like illness. After 2 years of treatment, mean Hb level = 8.8 g/dL and Hb F = 20.3%, both higher than predicted age-specific levels. Radionuclide splenic uptake was absent in 47% of patients at study completion, compared with predicted functional asplenia in 80% of the patients. CONCLUSIONS Hydroxyurea therapy for infants with SCA is feasible and well tolerated, has hematologic efficacy, and may delay functional asplenia. The potential for hydroxyurea to preserve organ function in SCA should be further evaluated.
Structural Determinants of Heparan Sulphate Modulation of GDNF Signalling

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) has many functions including regulation of kidney morphogenesis and of neuron growth and survival in the enteric, sensory and central nervous systems. Reports of GDNF being used against Parkinson's disease in human patients have sparked intense clinical interest in GDNF signalling. We recently showed that GDNF signalling requires cell surface heparan sulphate glycosaminoglycans (Barnett et al., 2002, J. Cell Sci. 115, 4495–4503). Here we use exogenous modified heparins to determine those structural features required to inhibit GDNF signalling in ex vivo assays. 2-O-sulphate groups were found to impart high activity but were not absolute requirements for the inhibition of GDNF signalling. These findings may explain the similarities between the phenotypes of transgenic mice lacking GDNF and those lacking heparan sulphate 2-sulphotransferase, the enzyme responsible for achieving 2-O-sulphation of uronic acids in vivo.
Dosimetry protocol for the forthcoming clinical trials in synchrotron stereotactic radiation therapy (SSRT).

PURPOSE An adequate dosimetry protocol for synchrotron radiation and the specific features of the ID17 Biomedical Beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility are essential for the preparation of the forthcoming clinical trials in the synchrotron stereotactic radiation therapy (SSRT). The main aim of this work is the definition of a suitable protocol based on standards of dose absorbed to water. It must allow measuring the absolute dose with an uncertainty within the recommended limits for patient treatment of 2%-5%. METHODS Absolute dosimetry is performed with a thimble ionization chamber (PTW semiflex 31002) whose center is positioned at 2 g cm(-2) equivalent depth in water. Since the available synchrotron beam at the ESRF Biomedical Beamline has a maximum height of 3 mm, a scanning method was employed to mimic a uniform exposition of the ionization chamber. The scanning method has been shown to be equivalent to a broad beam irradiation. Different correction factors have been assessed by using Monte Carlo simulations. RESULTS The absolute dose absorbed to water at 80 keV was measured in reference conditions with a 2% global uncertainty, within the recommended limits. The dose rate was determined to be in the range between 14 and 18 Gy/min, that is to say, a factor two to three times higher than the 6 Gy/min achievable in RapidArc or VMAT machines. The dose absorbed to water was also measured in a RW3 solid water phantom. This phantom is suitable for quality assurance purposes since less than 2% average difference with respect to the water phantom measurements was found. In addition, output factors were assessed for different field sizes. CONCLUSIONS A dosimetry protocol adequate for the specific features of the SSRT technique has been developed. This protocol allows measuring the absolute dose absorbed to water with an accuracy of 2%. It is therefore satisfactory for patient treatment.
SCHOOL CULTURE AND SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS: SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN PAKISTAN

The government schools in Pakistan are showing low performance for different reasons such as low level of leadership, untrained teachers, minimum community involvement, 2% education budget, and nonavailability of resources. This study clarifies the way through selfdevelopment of schools to get effectiveness in such circumstances of schools in Mardan district of Pakistan. The study tries to prove that the school culture development by the instructional leaders can help them to achieve their goals. The main aim of this study is to find out that the development of school culture needs no extra budget, but has a great role in motivation. The research design was non-experimental design with survey study. Different statistical methods such as descriptive statistics and Spearman rho were used to analyze the data using SPSS-22 and AMOS-22. It was found that the present level of school culture in the stated schools is low and there is a significant relationship between school culture and school effectiveness. It was concluded that high level of school culture will help achieve high the level of school effectiveness.