Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Subcutaneous versus Sublingual Immunotherapy for Allergic Rhinitis therapy: Which Is Superior

Background: A randomized single-blinded study including 50 patients with allergic rhinitis. Objective: To evaluate and compare the efficacy of subcutaneous versus sublingual immunotherapy in treatment of allergic rhinitis. Materials and methods: Patients divided into Group A: twenty patients received subcutaneous immunotherapy and group B: twenty patients received sublingual immunotherapy for twelve months. We assessed skin prick test, symptom score and medication use, quality of life and nasal smear eosinophilic count before and after treatment. Results: In group A, clinical improvement was achieved in 100% of monosensitised and 62.5% of polysensitised patients, while in group B 100% of monosensitised and 60% of of polysensitised patients exhibited clinical improvement. Conclusion: The subcutaneous and sublingual routes of immunotherapy have similar efficacy.
Microlocal high-range-resolution ISAR for low signal-to-noise environments

We consider the problem of identification of airborne objects from high-range-resolution radar data. We use high-frequency asymptotics to show that certain features of the object-correspond to identifiable features of the radar data. We study the cases of single scattering and scattering from re-entrant structures such as ducts. This work suggests a method for target identification that circumvents the need to create an intermediate radar image from which the object's characteristics are to be extracted. As such, this scheme may be applicable to efficient machine-based radar identification programs.
Stent-Assisted Coiling versus Coiling in Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysm: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background and Purpose Stent-assisted coiling was initially invented for wide-neck aneurysms, but is now used for smaller berry aneurysms. The aim of this study was to compare the safety and efficiency of stent-assisted coiling with conventional coiling in treatment of intracranial aneurysms. Methods A meta-analysis of studies that compared stent-assisted coiling with coiling only was conducted by searching English literatures via Pubmed, Medline and Cochrane Library databases without restricting the publication year. The primary outcomes in this study were immediate occlusion, progressive thrombosis rate, all-complication rate and angiographic recurrence. The secondary outcomes examined were packing density, mortality, permanent complication and thromboembolic complication rate. Results Ten retrospective cohort studies were included. There is currently only one unfinished randomized study. Although the stent-assisted coiling group tended to show a lower initial occlusion rate than that of the coiling-only group (57.6% versus 68.7%; OR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.30–1.44; P = 0.30), it achieved a significantly higher progressive thrombosis rate during follow up compared to that of the coiling only group (37.5% versus 19.4%; OR, 2.75; 95% CI, 1.95–3.86; P<0.00001) and a significantly lower recurrence rate (16.2% versus 34.4%; OR, 0.35; 95% CI, 0.25–0.49; P<0.00001). With respect to safety concerns, the all-complication rate (17.6% versus 15.9%; OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 0.77–1.62; P = 0.56), mortality rate (9.1% versus 2.6%; OR, 2.31; 95% CI, 0.68–7.82; P = 0.18), permanent complication rate (5.6% versus 3.9%; OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 0.96–2.41; P = 0.08) and thromboembolic complication rate (4.2% versus 4.9%; OR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.41–2.38; P = 0.97) did not show significant difference between the two groups. Conclusions Stent-assisted coiling has a lower recurrence rate than conventional coiling. Analysis of complication events did not show any significant difference between the two methods. Despite the findings reported herein, further validation by well-designed prospective studies is needed.
Evaluating the Relationship among Parents' Oral and Written Language Skills, the Home Literacy Environment, and Their Preschool Children's Emergent Literacy Skills.

EVALUATING THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG PARENTS’ ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE SKILLS, THE HOME LITERACY ENVIRONMENT, AND THEIR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S EMERGENT LITERACY SKILLS by Nicole A. Taylor Studies have examined the impact of parents’ educational level on their child’s emergent literacy skills and have found positive associations (Korat, 2009). However, a review of the literature indicates that previous studies have not investigated whether parents’ oral and written language skills relate to their child’s emergent oral and written language skills. This is important in light of the fact that parents’ educational level does not provide a complete picture of their academic skills (Greenberg, 1995). In addition to parental characteristics, the home literacy environment (HLE) is seen as important in the growth of children’s emergent literacy skills (Hood, Conlon, & Andrews, 2008). The two studies in this investigation explored the relationships among parental oral and written language skills, the HLE, and preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills. Both studies included 96 parent-child dyads. The first study examined the relationship between parents’ oral and written language skills and their preschoolers’ oral and written language skills. All participants were assessed on various oral and written language measures. Descriptive analyses, one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), correlations, and regressions were conducted to assess the relationships between the parent skills and child skills. Most of the parental skills were found to have a relationship with the child skills. The second study extended the first study by examining the relationships between parental responses on a Home Literacy Environment Survey (HLES) and Title Recognition Test (TRT) of children’s books, parental characteristics (educational level and oral and written language skills), and children’s emergent literacy skills. Descriptive analyses, one-way ANOVA, correlations, and regressions were employed to gain information about the relationships among the variables. The HLE (measured by responses to the HLES and TRT) had positive relationships with parents’ skills and children’s skills. However, the HLE did not predict the children’s skills beyond the contribution of parental characteristics. Interpreting the results of this study promotes thought about the specific role of the HLE as a potential mediator between parental characteristics and child skills. Altogether, both studies provide preliminary information about parental factors that may influence preschoolers’ emergent literacy skills. EVALUATING THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG PARENTS’ ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE SKILLS, THE HOME LITERACY ENVIRONMENT, AND THEIR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S EMERGENT LITERACY SKILLS by Nicole A. Taylor
FORAGE QUALITY TESTING AND MARKETS ; WHERE ARE WE GOING ?

Forage quality has a large impact on market price and profitability. Nationwide, the marketing systems of Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) and Relative Feed Value (RFV) are primarily ‘fiber-based’ marketing systems, since they depend upon Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF) and Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) lab measurements. Average change in California markets over 8 years of market reports in California was slightly over $7.00 per unit ADF (over $10.50/unit TDN), with somewhat lower values per unit of quality in the Intermountain, desert regions, and the Pacific Northwest. Marketing systems based upon ADF or NDF have the advantage of simplicity, and can successfully differentiate major differences between hay lots. However, they may fail to differentiate important differences in forage quality within a critical range of interest where changes in price are dramatic. Greater use of NDF digestibility, Ash, or other more measurements may assist in differentiating these hay products and improve prediction of the feeding value, if those measurements can be shown to be rapid and repeatable. There are limitations to the use of calculated values (including TDN); therefore it is important to primarily use measured, not calculated values in the marketplace. More sophisticated methods to incorporate additional measurements into the marketplace are needed.
Total Variation Blind Deconvolution: The Devil Is in the Details

In this paper we study the problem of blind deconvolution. Our analysis is based on the algorithm of Chan and Wong [2] which popularized the use of sparse gradient priors via total variation. We use this algorithm because many methods in the literature are essentially adaptations of this framework. Such algorithm is an iterative alternating energy minimization where at each step either the sharp image or the blur function are reconstructed. Recent work of Levin et al. [14] showed that any algorithm that tries to minimize that same energy would fail, as the desired solution has a higher energy than the no-blur solution, where the sharp image is the blurry input and the blur is a Dirac delta. However, experimentally one can observe that Chan and Wong's algorithm converges to the desired solution even when initialized with the no-blur one. We provide both analysis and experiments to resolve this paradoxical conundrum. We find that both claims are right. The key to understanding how this is possible lies in the details of Chan and Wong's implementation and in how seemingly harmless choices result in dramatic effects. Our analysis reveals that the delayed scaling (normalization) in the iterative step of the blur kernel is fundamental to the convergence of the algorithm. This then results in a procedure that eludes the no-blur solution, despite it being a global minimum of the original energy. We introduce an adaptation of this algorithm and show that, in spite of its extreme simplicity, it is very robust and achieves a performance comparable to the state of the art.
Hydrogen Production by Anaerobic Microbial Communities Exposed to Repeated Heat Treatments

Biological hydrogen production by anaerobic mixed communities was studied in laboratory‐scale bioreactors using sucrose as the substrate. A bioreactor in which a fraction of the return sludge was exposed to repeated heat treatments performed better than a control bioreactor without repeated heat treatment of return sludge and produced a yield of 2.15 moles of hydrogen per mole of sucrose, with 50% hydrogen in the biogas. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis showed that two different Clostridium groups (comprised of one or more species) were dominant during hydrogen production. The relative abundance of two other non‐Clostridium groups increased during periods of decreased hydrogen production. The first group consisted of Bifidobacterium thermophilum, and the second group included one or more of Bacillus, Melissococcus, Spirochaeta, and Spiroplasma spp.
[Adenoid cystic carcinoma of the head and neck--a 10 years experience].

INTRODUCTION Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) was first described in 1853 and 1854 by three french scientists, Robin, Lorain and Laboulbène. ACC is a rare cancer of the head and neck (about 1%) and it comprises from 6% to 10% of all malignant tumors of the salivary glands. 15%–30% of these tumors are located in submandibular gland, 30% occur in small salivary glands (in the palate, tongue, mouth, nose, sinuses, mucous membrane of the cheeks) and about 6% in parotid gland. Because of its specificity ACC is a challenge for the doctor – it is usually recognized at an advanced stage, spreads along the nerves, it has a high propensity for recurrence, often gives distant metastases, 10-year survival are very small. AIMS Aim of this study is the epidemiological and clinical analysis of patients with adenoid cystic carcinoma. MATERIAL AND METHODS Includes a retrospective analysis of 21 cases of patients with ACC of the head and neck were hospitalized at the ENT Clinic of the Warsaw Medical University between 2001 and 2011. Data from medical records contain information about the location of the tumor, symptoms and clinical signs, diagnostic methods, method of treatment and local recurrences and distant metastases. RESULTS most cases ACC occurred in the large salivary glands (14 cases), in 5 cases in the nasal cavity and maxillofacial region, in 2 cases in the tongue. In order to accurately determine the extent of the tumor, its relationship to adjacent structures was performed computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. Most of patients before treatment have been made biopsy of the tumor or download tissues by forceps for histopathological examination. Reported symptoms depend on the location of the tumor. In 20 cases the patients were treated by surgical therapy and followed by radiotherapy, in one case because of the extent of the tumor was sent to radiotherapy. CONCLUSIONS Surgical treatment of ACC requires a wide margin of healthy tissues; For the risk of local recurrences affected positive surgical margins, skull base locations of primary tumor and perineural invasion; Because of unpredictable nature of the tumor (local recurrences, distant metastasis), observation of patients after treatment should be carried out permanently, along with periodic imaging studies.
Analysis of GIS Spatial Data Using Knowledge-Based Methods

Abstract A symbolic approach to the analysis of mixed data types found in the spatial database of a Geographical Information System is developed. Unlike statistical techniques, that are essentially based on the manipulation of numeric quantities, the method here attempts to emulate photo-interpretation by manipulating symbolic representations of photo-interpretive knowledge. This representation consists of a mixture of normal and ‘defeasible’ rules. The latter enables analysis to proceed in the face of uncertainty by making (and possibly revising) assumptions about the contents of the scene being analysed. The analysis procedure is decomposed into three stages. The first deals with the analysis of data from groups of sensors (sources) providing the same type of information, the second combines the inferences of these individual analyses and the third imposes spatial consistency constraints. This decomposition implies a structuring of the knowledge, an issue that appears essential for a knowledge-based ana.
Quality of routine spirometry tests in Dutch general practices.

BACKGROUND Spirometry is an indispensable tool for diagnosis and monitoring of chronic airways disease in primary care. AIM To establish the quality of routine spirometry tests in general practice, and explore associations between test quality and patient characteristics. DESIGN OF STUDY Analysis of routine spirometry test records. SETTING Fifteen general practices which had a working agreement with a local hospital pulmonary function laboratory for spirometry assessment regarding test quality and interpretation. METHOD Spirometry tests were judged by a pulmonary function technician and a chest physician. Proportions of test adequacy were analysed using markers for manoeuvre acceptability and test reproducibility derived from the 1994 American Thoracic Society spirometry guideline. Associations between quality markers and age, sex, and severity of obstruction were examined using logistic regression. RESULTS Practices performed a mean of four (standard deviation = 2) spirometry tests per week; 1271 tests from 1091 adult patients were analysed; 96.4% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 95.6 to 97.2) of all tests consisted of ≥3 blows. With 60.6% of tests, forced expiratory time was the marker with the lowest acceptability rate. An overall 38.8% (95% CI = 36.0 to 41.6) of the tests met the acceptability as well as reproducibility criteria. Age, sex, and severity of obstruction were associated with test quality markers. CONCLUSION The quality of routine spirometry tests was better than in previous reports from primary care research settings, but there is still substantial room for improvement. Sufficient duration of forced expiratory time is the quality marker with the highest rate of inadequacy. Primary care professionals should be aware of patient characteristics that may diminish the quality of their spirometry tests. Further research is needed to establish to what extent spirometry tests that are inadequate, according to stringent international expert criteria, result in incorrect clinical interpretations in general practice.
ReconOS: Multithreaded programming for reconfigurable computers

Rising logic densities together with the inclusion of dedicated processor cores push reconfigurable devices from being applied for glue logic and prototyping towards implementing complete reconfigurable systems-on-chip. The mix of fast CPU cores and fine-grained reconfigurable logic allows to map both sequential, control-dominated code and highly parallel data-centric computations onto one platform. However, traditional design techniques that view specialized hardware circuits as passive coprocessors are ill-suited for programming these reconfigurable computers. In particular, the programming models for software—running on an embedded operating system—and digital hardware—synthesized to an FPGA—lack commonalities, which hinders design space exploration and severely impairs the potential for code reuse. In this article, we present ReconOS, an execution environment based on existing embedded operating systems that extends the multithreaded programming model established in the software domain to reconfigurable hardware. Using threads and common synchronization and communication services as an abstraction layer, ReconOS allows for the creation of portable and flexible multithreaded applications targeting CPU/FPGA systems. This article discusses the ReconOS programming model and its execution environment, presents implementations based on modern platform FPGAs and the operating systems eCos and Linux, evaluates time and area overheads of the proposed mechanisms and, finally, demonstrates the feasibility of the multithreading design approach on several case studies.
Feature Vector Quality and Distributional Similarity

We suggest a new goal and evaluation criterion for word similarity measures. The new criterion - meaning-entailing substitutability - fits the needs of semantic-oriented NLP applications and can be evaluated directly (independent of an application) at a good level of human agreement. Motivated by this semantic criterion we analyze the empirical quality of distributional word feature vectors and its impact on word similarity results, proposing an objective measure for evaluating feature vector quality. Finally, a novel feature weighting and selection function is presented, which yields superior feature vectors and better word similarity performance.
Methods Description v2.wxp

Project Abstract The prediction of relationships between a spatiotemporal fMRI brain activation signal and subjective human experience was carried out using three distinct methods: support vector machines (SVM), supervised principal components, and boosting principal components. The spatially normalized data in ANALYZE format are preprocessed by removing low frequency drift and high frequency by a band-pass Fast Fourier Transform filter. Subsequently, the three distinct methods are employed to generate predictions of Movie 1 features by using predictions and fMRI data from Movie 2 as a training dataset. The methods which predicted Movie 1 features most accurately for each feature were chosen to be utilized for the first submission. The effect of training on Movie 2 data alone or both Movie 1 and Movie 2 data together was assessed by training only on Movie 2 for the first submission and training on both Movies for the second. The third submission consisted of the better results for each feature and subject from the first two submissions. We found that none of the three methods were uniformly dominant across all subjects or all features. Each method predicted Movie 1 features very well (correlation > 0.5) for some features and poorly (correlation < 0.1) for others, however we are impressed with the information content of fMRI and each method's ability to extract that information. A novel approach to boosting supervised principal components and a genetic algorithm approach to optimizing support vector machine parameters are discussed in this paper.
Experiences with Introducing a new Software Process Model at T-Systems

Software process models are essential for software companies, because they embody their core competences in applying software development processes. In this paper experiences made at the development and enactment of a process model for T-systems, one of Germany's largest software companies, are depicted. Starting from the basic objectives the software engineering book (SE Book) is introduced and the measures to achieve the given objectives are presented. The process model was prototypically implemented by 29 pilot projects. The results of this pilot phase are summarized subsequently and an overview over activities that accompany the roll out of the SE Book is given.
In vivo analysis of carpal kinematics and comparative review of the literature.

PURPOSE Techniques have been developed very recently with which it is possible to quantify accurately in vivo 3-dimensional (3-D) carpal kinematics. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of our novel 3-D registration technique by comparing our data with data found in the literature. METHOD The right wrists of 11 healthy volunteers were imaged by spiral computed tomography (CT) during radial-ulnar deviation and 5 of those wrists were imaged also during flexion-extension motion. With a matching technique relative translations and rotations of the carpal bones were traced. We compared our in vivo results with data presented in the literature. RESULTS We found our in vivo data largely to concur with in vitro data presented in the literature. In vivo studies revealed only larger out-of-plane motions within the proximal carpal row than described in most in vitro studies. In vivo studies also showed larger interindividual variations. CONCLUSIONS A single functional model of carpal kinematics could not be determined. We expect that in vivo 3-D CT studies on carpal kinematics, especially when applied to dynamic wrist motion, will have future diagnostic applications and provide information on long-term results of surgical interventions.
Social Behaviours under Anaerobic Conditions in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is well adapted to grow in anaerobic environments in the presence of nitrogen oxides by generating energy through denitrification. Environmental cues, such as oxygen and nitrogen oxide concentrations, are important in regulating the gene expression involved in this process. Recent data indicate that P. aeruginosa also employs cell-to-cell communication signals to control the denitrifying activity. The regulation of denitrification by these signalling molecules may control nitric oxide production. Nitric oxide, in turn, functions as a signalling molecule by activating certain regulatory proteins. Moreover, under denitrifying conditions, drastic changes in cell physiology and cell morphology are induced that significantly impact group behaviours, such as biofilm formation.