Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reproducibility assessment of a multiple reference tissue method for quantitative dynamic contrast enhanced–MRI analysis

Bone metastases of 16 prostate cancer patients were scanned twice 1 week apart by dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) –MRI at 2‐s resolution using a two‐dimensional gradient‐echo pulse sequence. With a multiple reference tissue method (MRTM), the local tissue arterial input function (AIF) was estimated using the contrast agent enhancement data from tumor subregions and muscle. The 32 individual AIFs estimated by the MRTM, which had considerable intra‐patient and inter‐patient variability, were similar to directly measured AIFs in the literature and using the MRTM AIFs in a pharmacokinetic model to derive estimated individual cardiac outputs provided physiologically reasonable results. The MRTM individual AIFs gave better fits with smaller sum of squared errors and equally reproducible estimate of kinetic parameters compared with a previous reported population AIF measured from remote arteries. The individual MRTM AIFs were also used to obtain a mean local tissue AIF for the unique population of this study, which further improved the reproducibility of the estimated kinetic parameters. The MRTM can be applied to DCE‐MRI studies of bone metastases from prostate cancers to provide an AIF from which reproducible quantitative DCE‐MRI parameters can be derived, thus help standardize DCE‐MRI studies in cancer patients. Magn Reson Med, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Discrete Event Simulation Framework for Power Aware Wireless Sensor Networks

The PAWiS (power aware wireless sensors) simulation framework facilitates design and simulation of wireless sensor network models. Main focus is given to power efficiency and therefore on capturing inefficiencies in various aspect of the system. These aspects include all layers of the communication system, the targeted class of application itself, the power supply and energy management, the central processing unit (CPU) and the sensor-actuator interface. The proposed simulation framework is based on the OMNeT++ discrete event simulator and provides PAWiS specific features (e.g. a mechanism to handle RF channel transmissions) to simulate, analyze and optimize the aforementioned aspects.
POLM2: automatic profiling for object lifetime-aware memory management for hotspot big data applications

Big Data applications suffer from unpredictable and unacceptably high pause times due to bad memory management (Garbage Collection, GC) decisions. This is a problem for all applications but it is even more important for applications with low pause time requirements such as credit-card fraud detection or targeted website advertisement systems, which can easily fail to comply with Service Level Agreements due to long GC cycles (during which the application is stopped). This problem has been previously identified and is related to Big Data applications keeping in memory (for a long period of time, from the GC's perspective) massive amounts of data objects. Memory management approaches have been proposed to reduce the GC pause time by allocating objects with similar lifetimes close to each other. However, they either do not provide a general solution for all types of Big Data applications (thus only solving the problem for a specific set of applications), and/or require programmer effort and knowledge to change/annotate the application code. This paper proposes POLM2, a profiler that automatically: i) estimates application allocation profiles based on execution records, and ii) instruments application bytecode to help the GC taking advantage of the profiling information. Thus, no programmer effort is required to change the source code to allocate objects according to their lifetimes. POLM2 is implemented for the OpenJDK HotSpot Java Virtual Machine 8 and uses NG2C, a recently proposed GC which supports multi-generational pretenuring. Results show that POLM2 is able to: i) achieve pauses as low as NG2C (which requires manual source code modification), and ii) significantly reduce application pauses by up to 80% when compared to G1 (default collector in OpenJDK). POLM2 does not negatively impact neither application throughput nor memory utilization.
PIENSA: Development of an Early Intervention Program for Adolescents With Early-Onset Psychosis and Their Families

Interest in the effectiveness of psychological interventions in patients with psychosis has increased in the last 2 decades, and early intervention programs are increasingly common. PIENSA (Programa de Intervencion en Psicosis Adolescente; Intervention Program for Adolescent Psychosis) is a clinical program and pilot study based on previous research into the efficacy of early intervention in preventing relapse and improving outcome in patients with first-episode psychosis. We describe a psychoeducational intervention designed for adolescents with early-onset psychosis and their parents. The intervention is adapted from McFarlane's Multiple Family Therapy model to our setting and population (adolescents treated in the Spanish public health system). It consists of 2 stages: an individual stage comprising 3 sessions and a subsequent group stage comprising 12 sessions. The total program lasts for 1 academic year (9 months). # These authors contributed equally to this article.
A Review of Techniques to Detect and Prevent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack in Cloud Computing Environment

Cloud computing has become one of the most demanding services over the internet. It has gained remarkable fame for past few years.But it is under the severe threats of internet security. One of the severe threats is Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). DDoS occurs when a huge amount of packets are sent to a server from various computers. Botnet is one of the major causes that launch DDoS attack. Botnet is actually a network of bots or zombie computers that are under the control of attacker. Several techniques are available in the literature that provides solution to avoid DDoS attack.A survey on DDoS detection and prevention techniques and their comparative analysishave been done in this paper.
A Hybrid Multi-Path Routing for Wireless Mesh Network Backbone

In this paper, a new routing algorithm applicable for wireless mesh network (WMN) backbone, called hybrid multi-path routing (HMR), is presented. Based on DSR (dynamic source routing), HMR applies multi-path routing to improve the performance and routing fault tolerance of WMN backbone. A hybrid approach which combines the source routing and routing table improves the performance of WMN backbone without incurring too much overhead. HMR have some advantages on fault tolerance, control overhead of transferring data and delay of switching between routes.
HAT-P-18b AND HAT-P-19b: TWO LOW-DENSITY SATURN-MASS PLANETS TRANSITING METAL-RICH K STARS

We report the discovery of two new transiting extrasolar planets. HAT-P-18b orbits the V = 12.759 K2 dwarf star GSC 2594−00646, with a period P = 5.508023 ± 0.000006 days, transit epoch Tc = 2454715.02174 ± 0.00020 (BJD), and transit duration 0.1131 ± 0.0009 days. The host star has a mass of 0.77 ± 0.03 M☉, radius of 0.75 ± 0.04 R☉, effective temperature 4803 ± 80 K, and metallicity [Fe/H] = +0.10 ± 0.08. The planetary companion has a mass of 0.197 ± 0.013 MJ and radius of 0.995 ± 0.052 RJ, yielding a mean density of 0.25 ± 0.04 g cm−3. HAT-P-19b orbits the V = 12.901 K1 dwarf star GSC 2283−00589, with a period P = 4.008778 ± 0.000006 days, transit epoch Tc = 2455091.53417 ± 0.00034 (BJD), and transit duration 0.1182 ± 0.0014 days. The host star has a mass of 0.84 ± 0.04 M☉, radius of 0.82 ± 0.05 R☉, effective temperature 4990 ± 130 K, and metallicity [Fe/H] = +0.23 ± 0.08. The planetary companion has a mass of 0.292 ± 0.018 MJ and radius of 1.132 ± 0.072 RJ, yielding a mean density of 0.25 ± 0.04 g cm−3. The radial velocity residuals for HAT-P-19 exhibit a linear trend in time, which indicates the presence of a third body in the system. Comparing these observations with theoretical models, we find that HAT-P-18b and HAT-P-19b are each consistent with a hydrogen–helium-dominated gas giant planet with negligible core mass. HAT-P-18b and HAT-P-19b join HAT-P-12b and WASP-21b in an emerging group of low-density Saturn-mass planets, with negligible inferred core masses. However, unlike HAT-P-12b and WASP-21b, both HAT-P-18b and HAT-P-19b orbit stars with super-solar metallicity. This calls into question the heretofore suggestive correlation between the inferred core mass and host star metallicity for Saturn-mass planets.
Further Developments in Peer Assessment of Group Projects

ABSTRACT This report advises of refinements to the peer assessment technique detailed in Goldfinch & Raeside's paper of 1990. This technique is used to assign individual marks to the members of a team who have been working on a group project. The improvements include a way of easing the administrative burden of the technique for the lecturer, and a safeguard against an observed problem whereby over‐generous students effectively penalised themselves.
RARE-EVENT ANALYSIS OF CIRCULATING HUMAN DENDRITIC CELL SUBSETS AND THEIR PRESUMPTIVE MOUSE COUNTERPARTS1

Background. Considerable interest has focused recently on murine CD8&agr;− and CD8&agr;+ dendritic cell (DC) subsets, because of their roles in initiating and regulating immune responses. Attention has also centered on their presumed human counterparts, DC1 and DC2, respectively, and their precursors. Identification and quantification of these subsets in the blood may be crucial to understanding and monitoring of their immunologic significance, particularly in humans, where blood may be the only tissue readily or routinely available. Methods. Leukocytes were isolated from anticoagulated human or mouse (C57BL/10J) blood using conventional procedures. Four-color, rare-event, flow cytometric analysis was used to identify DC1 precursors (pDC1; lineage [lin]− CD4+ CD11c+ HLA-DR+) or DC2 precursors (pDC2; lin− CD4+ CD11c− CD123hi [IL-3R&agr;hi] HLA-DR+) in normal humans. In mice, CD8&agr;+ (CD11blo, CD11c+) and CD8&agr;− (CD11bhi, CD11c+) DC subsets were identified both in normal animals and after administration of the potent DC growth factor, fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Flt3L). Results. All human subjects examined had discrete populations of pDC1 and pDC2 comprising approximately 0.6% and 0.1% of blood mononuclear cells. CD8&agr;− and CD8&agr;+ DC constituted approximately 0.75% and 0.2%, respectively, of blood mononuclear cells in normal mice, and 12% and 0.5%, respectively, in Flt3L-treated animals. Flt3L administration substantially increased the absolute numbers of circulating CD11c+ DC by approximately 200-fold. Conclusions. In addition to pDC1 and CD8&agr;− DC, pDC2 and CD8&agr;+ DC can be identified in normal human or mouse blood, respectively. Monitoring and isolation or characterization of these cells may provide novel insights into their functional significance in transplantation and other clinical conditions.
Origins of intergroup bias: Developmental and social cognitive research on intergroup attitudes

Prejudice and stereotyping are central to research and theorizing in social psychology. Yet, all too often this work tacitly assumes that these phenomena spring into existence fully formed in adults. This special issue originates from the need to integrate adult social psychological approaches with developmental inquiry into the ontogenetic and phylogenetic origins of prejudice and stereotyping. The diverse set of nine papers in this special issue demonstrates the utility of this interdisciplinary approach. In this introduction, we make the case for giving developmental research a seat at the social psychological table, and briefly summarize the contributions contained in this special issue.
USENIX Association Proceedings of the FREENIX Track : 2004

We describe mGTK, a Standard ML language binding for the Gtk+ toolkit. Gtk+ is a graphical toolkit for the X Window System, and provides an object-oriented C language API. Since Standard ML is a mostly-functional language without object types, constructing a binding to Gtk+ is not a trivial task. In mGTK, a single-inheritance class hierarchy is encoded using SML’s type system. Most of the mGTK binding is machine generated, to best utilize the limited manpower of the project. The goal of the mGTK project is “just” to present a type-safe interface to Gtk+ for SML programmers. This contrasts with GUI libraries for functional languages, which concentrate on producing good user interfaces: there are several SML graphical user interface libraries available for this task. With mGTK, SML applications have access to the mature, complete and familiar Gtk+ user interface.
Cultured astrocytes from heme oxygenase‐1 knockout mice are more vulnerable to heme‐mediated oxidative injury

Hemin, the oxidized form of heme, is released from hemoglobin after CNS hemorrhage and may contribute to injury to surrounding tissue. The heme oxygenase (HO) enzymes catalyze the breakdown of hemin to biliverdin, carbon monoxide, and ferric iron. Although HO‐2, the isoform expressed predominantly in neurons, accelerates heme‐mediated neuronal injury, inhibitor studies suggest that HO‐1 induction has a protective effect on astrocytes. In the present study, we directly compared the vulnerability of cultured HO‐1 knockout and wild‐type astrocytes to hemin. Consistent with prior observations, exposure of wild‐type cultures to hemin for 24 hr resulted in protein carbonylation and concentration‐dependent cell death between 10 and 60 μM, as determined by MTT and lactate dehydrogenase release assays. In cultures prepared from mice lacking the HO‐1 gene, oxidative cell injury was approximately doubled. Both protein oxidation and cell death in HO‐1 knockout astrocytes were significantly reduced by pretreating cultures with an adenovirus encoding the HO‐1 gene prior to hemin exposure. HO‐2 expression was observed in both knockout and wild‐type cultures and was not altered by HO‐1 gene deletion. Cell hemin accumulation after 20 hr hemin exposure was 4.7‐fold higher in knockout cells. These results support the hypothesis that HO‐1 protects astrocytes from heme‐mediated oxidative injury. Selectively increasing its expression in astrocytes may be beneficial after hemorrhagic CNS injuries. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
EVALUATION OF FARMER FIELD SCHOOL ON INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT OF RICE IN JEMBER DISTRICT, EAST JAVA - INDONESIA

This research is aimed to explore the quality of the program implementation of the Integrated Pest Management Field Farmer School (IPMFFS) (in Indonesian language abbreviated as SLPHT, namely Sekolah Lapangan Pengendalian Hama Terpadu); to evaluate the effects of the IPMFFS program to the degree of the pesticide use and the production of farmer-efforts; and to describe the provision of the farmer-efforts, adoption process, innovation process and the change of knowledge and skills of the participants after to be actively involved in the IPMFFS program. The population of the research was 150 trainers (agricultural extension agent/PHP) and 22.240 farmers (grouped into 556 farmer groups engaged in the IPMFFS) in Jember district. The sample of this study consisted of 110 trainers (agricultural extension agent/PHP) and 400 farmers selected with the employment of
Looking for a Needle in a Haystack? A Structural Time Series Model of the Relationship Between Teenage Employment and Minimum Wages in the United States

The work of Card and Krueger has cast doubt on the nature of the relationship between the minimum wage and teenage employment. The earlier "consensus" finding of a small but statistically significant negative effect was based on time series data whereas Card and Krueger's findings are based mainly on cross section data. In this article, we re-examine the time series relationship between minimum wage and teenage employment. We find that previous models break down due to their inability to capture changes in the trend, cyclical and seasonal components of teenage employment. We propose a structural time series model in which these components are treated as stochastic components and which contains the traditional approach as a special case. The model when estimated up to 1979 accurately predicts what happens to teenage employment subsequently, when the minimum wage was frozen after 1981 and then increased quite substantially in the early 1990s. Moreover, we find that there is a significant, negative effect of the minimum wage on teenage employment and its size and significance have hardly changed during the 1980s and early 1990s. Finally, the model remains robust in an out-of-sample test for 1993-99 containing two further minimum wage hikes.
Those Who Have, Receive: The Matthew Effect in Early Childhood Intervention in the Home Environment

Are preventive early childhood interventions effective in improving home environments, as assessed with the HOME inventory (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984)? The authors traced 48 published articles, presenting 56 intervention effects (N = 7,350). The combined effect size on the HOME total score was d = 0.20 (p < .001). Randomized intervention studies were effective, but the combined effect size was limited (d = 0.13). Nonrandomized studies showed inflated effects (d = 0.58). Interventions with middle-class, non-adolescent parents showed higher effect sizes than interventions with low-SES or adolescent samples. Effective interventions used a moderate number of sessions in a limited period and were home-based. Learning Materials, Involvement, and Responsivity showed significant intervention effects. Families in better living conditions profited more from parent education (the Matthew effect).
Madagascar: A History of Arrivals, What Happened, and Will Happen Next*

Most of the ancestors of today's human and animal populations reached Madagascar over the last 65 million years, by a variety of routes at a variety of times. Settlers encountered a big, isolated island with an unpredictable climate and a wide array of landscapes. Although patterns of diversification were driven by different mechanisms in humans and animals, the complex interplay between historical contingency and responsiveness to local conditions is evident in both. Global climate change will affect Madagascar, although exactly how remains unclear, and the immediate impact of human activity on the island is overtaking that of gradual global change. Three themes in this review bear on the future: the continuing impact of recent, cataclysmic events on modern communities of people, plants, and animals; Madagascar's long and dynamic environmental history; and the complicated history of how people settled and interacted with the island's landscapes. A deeper understanding of all three can contribute to wise .
Environmental Scanning Systems: State Of The Art And First Instantiation

The 2008/2009 economic crisis provided a sustainabl e impulse for improving environmental scanning systems (ESS). Although a rich body of knowledge ex ists, concepts are not often used in practice. This article contributes a literature review addressing six findings for ESS design to become more applicable than the state of the art. They are structure d by the elements of information systems (IS) desig n theories. Addressing the lack of a sound requiremen ts analysis, our first finding proposes a 360degree ESS for executives' "managing a company" tas k and presents how to select just the most important scanning areas to keep focus. Three other findings cover the IS mo del perspective focusing on a better "grasp" of weak signals: define concret e indicators and use IT to identify relevant causeeffective-chains, leverage IT to automate day-to-da y routines and monitor the variety of indicators' movements, and leverage expert experience and trans late indicators' impact into a balanced opportunity-and-threat portfolio. From the methods perspective on ESS, we fifth propose to incorporate scanning results into executives' decis ion-making process more closely by generating scenarios from a set of assumptions and the develop ment of indicators. Retrospective controls to update the ESS continuously and collaboration to sh are the scanning findings in day-to-day operation is our sixth finding. Finally, an instantiation at a large international company helped us validate ou r findings and to highlight how current developments in IS contribute to successful design, implementation, and day-to-day operation of new-gen eration ESS.
Rosuvastatin attenuated contrast-induced nephropathy in diabetes patients with renal dysfunction.

BACKGROUND The protective effect of statins against CIN is still controversial. We investigated the efficacy of pretreatment of rosuvastatin in decreasing the risk of CIN in a high-risk population of patients undergoing coronary angiography. METHODS We conducted a prospective, randomized, controlled study, involving 120 patients with diabetes and mild to moderate renal dysfunction undergoing coronary angioplasty. Patients were randomly assigned to receive rosuvastatin (n = 60, 10 mg/day) or no statins (n = 60) for at least 2 days before and 3 days after contrast media administration. Serum cystatin (SCysC), serum neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) and urinary N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase/urinary creatinine (NAG/UCr) were also observed before and after procedure. RESULTS Baseline demographic characteristics and nephropathy risk factors were similar between groups. The NGAL levels after procedure were higher than baseline (P < 0.05). Both the peak NGAL values occurred at 2 hours. In rosuvastatin group the peak NGAL values were lower compared with that in control group [(47.60 ± 18.72) μg/L vs (62.19 ± 44.68) μg/L, P = 0.014]. No differences of the peak values of SCr were found between the two groups. But the peak levels of SCysC in rosuvastatin group were significantly lower compared with that in control group [(0.96 ± 0.30) mg/L vs (1.08 ± 0.34) mg/L, P = 0.043]. There were significant statistical differences of NAG/Cr levels in the two groups. No clinical events occurred within the following 30 days in the two groups. CONCLUSIONS Rosuvastatin could reduce the effect of degrading glomerular filtration function and renal tubular damage in patients with DM and mild to moderate renal dysfunction.
Three phase asymmetrical power flow algorithm using current injection technique

Load flow studies play a vital role in planning the future expansion of power system as well as for deciding the optimum operation of the existing power system. Three phase asymmetrical power flow studies are recommended for unbalanced power systems such as distribution networks. Unbalanced loading, single phase and two phase shunts make the system operation unbalanced leaving the application of conventional load flow techniques away from the scene. The paper presents an unbalanced power flow algorithm based on the current injection technique with full Newton-Raphson formulation. The proposed method is validated using IEEE four bus test network.
Effects of Instruction in Methodological Reasoning on Information Evaluation

In this article we describe an instructional program that focuses on applying causal reasoning and related principles of the scientific method to problems faced in daily life. In a highly interactive classroom setting, the instructor gives students repeated opportunities to apply methodological reasoning to real-world scenarios for the purpose of making informed decisions. In addition to describing the program, we report the findings of a capstone exercise that examined changes in students' beliefs toward legalization of marijuana after reading persuasive communications. Students who experienced the instructional program exhibited less bias in evaluating information and less attitude polarization than students in a comparison group. We discuss the implications of these findings for developing and evaluating instructional programs in methodological reasoning in psychology.