Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cost-Effective and Non-Invasive Automated Benign & Malignant Thyroid Lesion Classification in 3D Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound Using Combination of Wavelets and Textures: A Class of ThyroScan™ Algorithms

Ultrasound has great potential to aid in the differential diagnosis of malignant and benign thyroid lesions, but interpretative pitfalls exist and the accuracy is still poor. To overcome these difficulties, we developed and analyzed a range of knowledge representation techniques, which are a class of ThyroScan™ algorithms from Global Biomedical Technologies Inc., California, USA, for automatic classification of benign and malignant thyroid lesions. The analysis is based on data obtained from twenty nodules (ten benign and ten malignant) taken from 3D contrast-enhanced ultrasound images. Fine needle aspiration biopsy and histology confirmed malignancy. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and texture algorithms are used to extract relevant features from the thyroid images. The resulting feature vectors are fed to three different classifiers: K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN), Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN), and Decision Tree (DeTr). The performance of these classifiers is compared using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves. Our results show that combination of DWT and texture features coupled with K-NN resulted in good performance measures with the area of under the ROC curve of 0.987, a classification accuracy of 98.9%, a sensitivity of 98%, and a specificity of 99.8%. Finally, we have proposed a novel integrated index called Thyroid Malignancy Index (TMI), which is made up of texture features, to diagnose benign or malignant nodules using just one index. We hope that this TMI will help clinicians in a more objective detection of benign and malignant thyroid lesions.
Investigating the Effects of Mass Media Exposure on the Uptake of Preventive Measures by Hong Kong Residents during the 2015 MERS Outbreak: The Mediating Role of Interpersonal Communication and the Perception of Concern

In 2015, South Korea experienced the largest outbreak to date of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) outside the Middle East. Fears related to a potential spread of the disease led to an increased alert level as well as heightened media coverage in the neighboring Hong Kong. A cross-sectional survey (N = 533) among residents of Hong Kong was conducted to assess the relationships between the effects of outbreak-related mass media coverage, interpersonal communication, the perceived level of concern in one’s close environment, and the uptake of preventive measures. A serial multiple mediator model finds that interpersonal communication and higher perceived concern indirectly influence the effects of media coverage on the engagement in preventive actions. These results expand previous research on the mediating role of interpersonal communication and support assumptions about a modified two-step flow of communication in the context of a public health emergency.
Development of Magnetic Particle-Based Immunoassays and Their Applications in Diabetes Monitoring

In addition to blood glucose testing, monitoring of blood glycated proteins got considerable attention on the glycemic control of diabetes. Glycated albumin has been reported as a good complementary to or better indicator than glycated hemoglobin for the evaluation of short-term glycemic control. Herein, the development of magnetic particle-based immunoassays for blood glycated proteins is demonstrated. Spherical magnetic particles are fabricated composed of a polystyrene core covered with a thin layer of Fe3O4 and SiO2. The core-shell structure allow us to control a wide size range by using the polystyrene cores of different size, and the silica outer layer can be functionalized easily with silane coupling agents. Aminophenylboronic acid is covalently immobilized onto magnetic particles for the affinity isolation of glycated proteins, while horseradish peroxidase labeled antibodies are used for detection. The assays are optimized and applied successfully to the determination of glycated albumin in standard and human serum samples and show good potential as tools for diabetes monitoring.
Characterization of Transcriptional Regulation During Negative Selection In Vivo1

Negative selection is the process whereby immature thymocytes expressing TCRs with high affinity for self-peptide:MHC complexes are induced to undergo apoptosis. The transcriptional events that occur as a result of TCR signaling during negative selection are not well-characterized. Using oligonucleotide arrays, we have identified 33 genes that exhibit changes in RNA levels in CD4+CD8+ thymocytes during negative selection in vivo. Of 18 genes that have been further characterized, 13 are regulated in response to stimulation with Ag or anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 Abs ex vivo, indicating that these genes are regulated independently of activation of the peripheral immune system. These data also support the idea that anti-CD3/CD28-mediated thymocyte apoptosis is a valid model for negative selection in vivo. A detailed examination of the regulation of many of the identified genes in response to treatment with dexamethasone or gamma-radiation or in response to anti-CD3/anti-CD28 stimulation in the presence of pharmacological inhibitors of mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 1, p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase, calcineurin, and cyclin-dependent kinase 2 has facilitated the elucidation of a map of the transcriptional events that occur downstream of the TCR. These studies support a model whereby similar signal transduction pathways are activated by stimuli that induce positive and negative selection and are consistent with the idea that the balance between opposing proapoptotic and antiapoptotic pathways determines cell fate. The data presented in this study also suggest that calcineurin functions to amplify TCR signals by promoting sustained increases in the levels of specific transcripts.
Parental identity, lifelong learning and school

This text presents the thoughts derived from empirical, qualitative research carried out in a small group of parents of school-age children. Although the research terrain was Poland, the problems here considered revolve around the broad issue of parental identity, especially in a context of the concept of Lifelong Learning. Conclusions are built upon an exploratory description of parental identity, which gives support to the assumption that it is the identity of a lifelong learner, shaped more or less independently of the LLL's political context, largely dominated by economic interests. In the light of this, the following intriguing question needs to be answered: what is the significance of this context for the parents—school relationship? By becoming part of a new educational order under the banner of LLL, this relationship may be molded into a better shape. Final reflections refer to the research results, including the multi-dimensional structure – a hologram parental identity, which, together with a set of more detailed categories, made it possible to formulate prospective proposals focusing on the concept of the school as a chora (khôra, Derrida, 1993), a place craving for new meanings. Located in the perspective of spatialised thought, they direct our attention to the methods of critical analysis regarding the space of school – parents relationships, a space of formative importance in parental self-creation. Solutions built on such methods fall outside the traditional binarism that favours the ossification of order based on teacher's authority, and allow for the creation of new ways of representations, new school policies, etc.
[Translation and Development of the Chinese-Version Patient Privacy Scale].

BACKGROUND The unauthorized releasing of confidential patient information is a serious problem worldwide. Nurses, the healthcare professionals who are in most frequent contact with patients, have access to a significant amount of confidential patient information and play a key role in protecting patient privacy. However, currently, there is no proper tool to measure the level to which clinical nurses protect the privacy of their patients in China. PURPOSE To translate the patient privacy scale (PPS) into Chinese and to test the reliability and validity of this Chinese version. METHODS The original scale was developed by Özturk, Bahcecik, and Özçelik (2014) to identify whether nurses protect or violate patient privacy in the workplace. This study used the "back translation" method to translate the scale. A total of 616 nurses in two tertiary hospitals in the Western region of China were enrolled to test the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity of the translated scale. RESULTS The Cronbach's coefficients of the total scale and its 5 factors ranged from . 84 to . 94; the split half reliability was . 91; the test-retest reliability was . 82; and the content validity index was . 95. Explanatory factor analysis revealed that the 5 factors explained 64.98% of the total variance. CONCLUSIONS The Chinese version of the PPS is reliable and valid, and may be used to reliably assess the behaviors of nurses with regard to protecting the privacy of their patients. The scale may also be used to evaluate the effects of training on patient privacy protection.
Offset-Fed Folded Dipole and Its Application As RFID Tag Antenna

This paper introduced an offset-fed folded dipole and its application for RFID tag antenna which is capable of working on both metal and non-metal objects with moderate reading range. The antenna itself takes a very simple form and has a single layer structure. As a result, the proposed antenna could serve as a low cost solution for ultra high frequency RFID tags. A transmission line model was proven to be highly accurate for the proposed antenna, which makes the design process simple and effective. The proposed antenna can be designed to have stable input impedance by tuning the location of feed point. Two different types of prototypes were fabricated and tested.
A Framework of Online Customer Experience: An Indian Perspective

With the rapid adoption of online retailing in India, retailer focus has undergone a paradigm shift. From service and relationship focus, online retailers now focus on customer experience as a strategic differentiator for sustainable competitive advantage. In this context, the aim of this article is to conceptualize and empirically test an integrated model of online customer experience (OCE) with antecedents, components and outcome variables along with the role of the moderating role of gender using structural equation modelling. Overall, results support the proposed model and confirm the relationships drawn from the literature. The study contributes to knowledge creation in the OCE domain. Implications for both research and practice are discussed along with limitations and future research directions.
Symbolic User-Defined Periodicity in Temporal Relational Databases

Calendars and periodicity play a fundamental role in many applications. Recently, some commercial databases started to support user-defined periodicity in the queries in order to provide "a human-friendly way of handling time" (see, e.g., TimeSeries in Oracle 8). On the other hand, only few relational data models support user-defined periodicity in the data, mostly using "mathematical" expressions to represent periodicity. In this paper, we propose a high-level "symbolic" language for representing user-defined periodicity which seems to us more human-oriented than mathematical ones, and we use the domain of Gadia's temporal elements in order to define its properties and its extensional semantics. We then propose a temporal relational model which supports user-defined "symbolic" periodicity (e.g., to express "on the second Monday of each month") in the validity time of tuples and also copes with frame times (e.g., "from 1/1/98 to 28/2/98"). We define the temporal counterpart of the standard operators of the relational algebra, and we introduce new temporal operators and functions. We also prove that our temporal algebra is a consistent extension of the classical (atemporal) one. Moreover, we define both a fully symbolic evaluation method for the operators on the periodicities in the validity times of tuples, which is correct but not complete, and semisymbolic one, which is correct and complete, and study their computational complexity.
Family quality of life: adult school children with intellectual disabilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

AIMS This study endeavours to provide initial data on quality of life for families with adult children who have intellectual disabilities (ID) in the Canton of Sarajevo. METHODS The principal measure used was the Family Quality of life Survey 2006 - main caregivers of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The sample consisted of the main caregivers of 35 families with adult school children with ID who attended classes in a specially adapted programme in the Center of Vladimir Nazor and in the Vocational Secondary School in Sarajevo. Of the 35 participants, 21 were male and 14 female. Students with disabilities ranged from 19 to 32 years old (mean 21.45). RESULTS Consistent with previous research, the nine domains measured by the scale were all rated high for Importance. Opportunities were considered to be particularly low for Financial Well-Being and Support from Others. These domains were also rated lowest for Attainment and Satisfaction. Initiative was relatively high across all domains, and Stability (the degree to which things were seen as likely to improve or decline) varied slightly across domains but the means indicated that things are expected to stay almost the same or improve slightly. CONCLUSIONS This research provides initial data for family quality of life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It also provides suggestions for improving quality of life for families that have one or more members with ID. The results should also contribute to rejecting stereotypes and promoting inclusion of children with ID as well as the rights of their families.
Computer simulation models of pre-diabetes populations: a systematic review protocol

Introduction Diabetes is a major public health problem and prediabetes (intermediate hyperglycaemia) is associated with a high risk of developing diabetes. With evidence supporting the use of preventive interventions for prediabetes populations and the discovery of novel biomarkers stratifying the risk of progression, there is a need to evaluate their cost-effectiveness across jurisdictions. In diabetes and prediabetes, it is relevant to inform cost-effectiveness analysis using decision models due to their ability to forecast long-term health outcomes and costs beyond the time frame of clinical trials. To support good implementation and reimbursement decisions of interventions in these populations, models should be clinically credible, based on best available evidence, reproducible and validated against clinical data. Our aim is to identify recent studies on computer simulation models and model-based economic evaluations of populations of individuals with prediabetes, qualify them and discuss the knowledge gaps, challenges and opportunities that need to be addressed for future evaluations. Methods and analysis A systematic review will be conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, EconLit and National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database. We will extract peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2016 that describe computer simulation models of the natural history of individuals with prediabetes and/or decision models to evaluate the impact of interventions, risk stratification and/or screening on these populations. Two reviewers will independently assess each study for inclusion. Data will be extracted using a predefined pro forma developed using best practice. Study quality will be assessed using a modelling checklist. A narrative synthesis of all studies will be presented, focussing on model structure, quality of models and input data, and validation status. Ethics and dissemination This systematic review is exempt from ethics approval because the work is carried out on published documents. The findings of the review will be disseminated in a related peer-reviewed journal and presented at conferences. Reviewregistration number CRD42016047228.
A survey of fuzzy clustering algorithms for pattern recognition. II

For pt.I see ibid., p.775-85. In part I an equivalence between the concepts of fuzzy clustering and soft competitive learning in clustering algorithms is proposed on the basis of the existing literature. Moreover, a set of functional attributes is selected for use as dictionary entries in the comparison of clustering algorithms. In this paper, five clustering algorithms taken from the literature are reviewed, assessed and compared on the basis of the selected properties of interest. These clustering models are (1) self-organizing map (SOM); (2) fuzzy learning vector quantization (FLVQ); (3) fuzzy adaptive resonance theory (fuzzy ART); (4) growing neural gas (GNG); (5) fully self-organizing simplified adaptive resonance theory (FOSART). Although our theoretical comparison is fairly simple, it yields observations that may appear parodoxical. First, only FLVQ, fuzzy ART, and FOSART exploit concepts derived from fuzzy set theory (e.g., relative and/or absolute fuzzy membership functions). Secondly, only SOM, FLVQ, GNG, and FOSART employ soft competitive learning mechanisms, which are affected by asymptotic misbehaviors in the case of FLVQ, i.e., only SOM, GNG, and FOSART are considered effective fuzzy clustering algorithms.
The state and the regulation of work and employment: theoretical contributions, forgotten lessons and new forms of engagement*

Abstract Within the work and employment literature there has been a tendency to conflate the concept of regulation with the legislative role of the state and the enforcement of rules through various state agencies. Yet there has been limited engagement with the question of the state and its role in more abstract terms. There has been a historic tendency to view the state as a coherent, unitary actor – a tendency repeated by various theoretical perspectives. More recently, work and employment debates on regulation have too often reduced the question of the state to a one dimensional focus on its various functions: the state as legislator; as employer; or in terms of its coercive apparatus. There has been relatively limited engagement with the role of the state in more conceptual terms. Drawing on contributions from adjacent disciplines, the paper argues that the role of the state needs to be addressed at various levels of abstraction – an approach that has been increasingly overlooked in work and employment debates. Understanding the role of the state and its regulatory function requires a nuanced analysis of the various spaces and actors involved the regulatory process. In turn, such analysis needs to be located in terms of broader socio-economic configurations so as to avoid a narrow focus on institutionalism, and a piecemeal, fragmented view of the state. While the paper draws primarily on the UK for illustration, the intention is that the argument has theoretical generalisability beyond this context.
Influencing Factors of CDM’s Performances in Efficiency Improvement of Low-carbon Technology Innovation in China

We firstly look into the current status of CDM practices and low-carbon technology innovation efficiency in China. Then several influencing factors of CDM’s performances in efficiency improvement are put forward, and further verified in our empirical analysis. Using a logit model, we find that project number, scale and type, CER issuance and success rate, CER price and returns to investments, as well as economic development of host regions, have significant impacts on the probability of efficiency improvement. Impacts of these factors on the rate of efficiency improvement are also estimated.
Bone-tissue engineering: complex tunable structural and biological responses to injury, drug delivery, and cell-based therapies

Abstract Bone loss and failure of proper bone healing continues to be a significant medical condition in need of solutions that can be implemented successfully both in human and veterinary medicine. This is particularly true when large segmental defects are present, the bone has failed to return to normal form or function, or the healing process is extremely prolonged. Given the inherent complexity of bone tissue – its unique structural, mechanical, and compositional properties, as well as its ability to support various cells – it is difficult to find ideal candidate materials that could be used as the foundation for tissue regeneration from technological platforms. Recently, important developments have been made in the implementation of complex structures built both at the macro- and the nano-level that have been shown to positively impact bone formation and to have the ability to deliver active biological molecules (drugs, growth factors, proteins, cells) for controlled tissue regeneration and the prevention of infection. These materials are diverse, ranging from polymers to ceramics and various composites. This review presents developments in this area with a focus on the role of scaffold structure and chemistry on the biologic processes that influence bone physiology and regeneration.
The impact of differences in EQ-5D and SF-6D utility scores on the acceptability of cost-utility ratios: results across five trial-based cost-utility studies.

OBJECTIVE This article investigates whether differences in utility scores based on the EQ-5D and the SF-6D have impact on the incremental cost-utility ratios in five distinct patient groups. METHODS We used five empirical data sets of trial-based cost-utility studies that included patients with different disease conditions and severity (musculoskeletal disease, cardiovascular pulmonary disease, and psychological disorders) to calculate differences in quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) based on EQ-5D and SF-6D utility scores. We compared incremental QALYs, incremental cost-utility ratios, and the probability that the incremental cost-utility ratio was acceptable within and across the data sets. RESULTS We observed small differences in incremental QALYs, but large differences in the incremental cost-utility ratios and in the probability that these ratios were acceptable at a given threshold, in the majority of the presented cost-utility analyses. More specifically, in the patient groups with relatively mild health conditions the probability of acceptance of the incremental cost-utility ratio was considerably larger when using the EQ-5D to estimate utility. While in the patient groups with worse health conditions the probability of acceptance of the incremental cost-utility ratio was considerably larger when using the SF-6D to estimate utility. CONCLUSIONS Much of the appeal in using QALYs as measure of effectiveness in economic evaluations is in the comparability across conditions and interventions. The incomparability of the results of cost-utility analyses using different instruments to estimate a single index value for health severely undermines this aspect and reduces the credibility of the use of incremental cost-utility ratios for decision-making.