Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Liver steatosis is an independent risk factor for treatment failure in patients with chronic hepatitis C

Objectives Hepatic steatosis is a common feature of chronic hepatitis C. The purpose of this study was to determine factors related to the presence of steatosis and to define the role of steatosis in the response to antiviral treatment in chronic hepatitis C patients. Methods We retrospectively analysed all patients with chronic hepatitis C treated in a 5 year period in our department. Patients were included in the study only if a pretreatment liver biopsy specimen was available for evaluation. All patients treated either with interferon in combination with ribavirin, or with pegylated interferon in combination with ribavirin were included irrespectively of their response (early, end of treatment and/or sustained) to antiviral therapy. Results A total of 116 patients with chronic hepatitis C were included in the study with a mean age of 45.5±14.1 years. Steatosis was present in 52 patients (44.8%). On univariate analysis age, P=0.04 and body mass index ⩾25, P=0.004 were correlated with the presence of steatosis and on multivariate analysis only body mass index ⩾25, P=0.032. Advanced fibrosis was not found associated with steatosis. Sixty patients out of 116 (51.7%) had sustained virological response (SVR). In particular 42 out of 64 patients with no steatosis (65.6%) had SVR compared to 20 out of 52 patients (38.4%) with any degree of steatosis (P=0.009). Patients with genotype 2 or 3 had a more favourable outcome compared to patients with 1 or 4 genotypes, 63.2% vs 49.2%, P=0.032. Also increased age (P=0.0001), gamma glutamyltransferase (GGT) (P=0.029), no history of intravenous drugs use (P=0.001) and advanced fibrosis on pretreatment biopsy (P=0.046) were correlated with treatment failure. On multivariate analysis significant independent association with SVR was found with the presence of steatosis on pretreatment biopsy (P=0.004), increased GGT (P=0.005) and genotype (P=0.017). Conclusion Steatosis in the liver biopsy performed before the beginning of antiviral treatment was found to be associated only to the body mass index of the patients and to be a strong independent factor for treatment failure.
Gaussian process regression as a predictive model for Quality-of-Service in Web service systems

In this paper, we present the Gaussian process regression as the predictive model for Quality-of-Service (QoS) attributes in Web service systems. The goal is to predict performance of the execution system expressed as QoS attributes given existing execution system, service repository, and inputs, e.g., streams of requests. In order to evaluate the performance of Gaussian process regression the simulation environment was developed. Two quality indexes were used, namely, Mean Absolute Error and Mean Squared Error. The results obtained within the experiment show that the Gaussian process performed the best with linear kernel and statistically significantly better comparing to Classification and Regression Trees (CART) method.
Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Although the proportion of students enrolled in college increased in the last decades, students from non-college family backgrounds remain underrepresented in higher education around the world. This study sheds light on whether the provision of information in a randomized controlled trial with more than 1,000 German high school students results in higher college enrollment rates. One year prior to high school graduation, we treated students in randomly selected schools by giving an in-class presentation on the benefits and costs of higher education as well as on possible funding options for college education. We collected data from students prior to the information intervention and followed them for four consecutive years. We find evidence that an information intervention increases students’ application as well as their enrollment rates, in particular for students from non-college backgrounds with enrollment intentions prior to treatment. Moreover, treated students persist in college at a similar rate as students in the control group, i.e. they are not more likely to drop out of college. Our results indicate that a low-cost information intervention is an efficient tool to encourage students to translate their college intentions into actual enrollment.
d-Alanylation of Lipoteichoic Acid: Role of the d-Alanyl Carrier Protein in Acylation

ABSTRACT The d-alanylation of membrane-associated lipoteichoic acid (LTA) in gram-positive organisms requires thed-alanine–d-alanyl carrier protein ligase (AMP) (Dcl) and the d-alanyl carrier protein (Dcp). Thedlt operon encoding these proteins (dltA anddltC) also includes dltB and dltD. dltB encodes a putative transport system, whiledltD encodes a protein which facilitates the binding of Dcp and Dcl for ligation with d-alanine and has thioesterase activity for mischarged d-alanyl-acyl carrier proteins (ACPs). In previous results it was shown that d-alanyl-Dcp donates its ester residue to membrane-associated LTA (M. P. Heaton and F. C. Neuhaus, J. Bacteriol. 176: 681–690, 1994). However, all efforts to identify an enzyme which catalyzes thisd-alanylation process were unsuccessful. It was discovered that incubation of d-alanyl-Dcp in the presence of LTA resulted in the time-dependent hydrolysis of this d-alanyl thioester. d-Alanyl-ACP in the presence of LTA was not hydrolyzed. When Dcp was incubated with membrane-associatedd-alanyl LTA, a time and concentration-dependent formation of d-alanyl-Dcp was found. The addition of NaCl to this reaction inhibited the formation of d-alanyl-Dcp and stimulated the hydrolysis of d-alanyl-Dcp. Since these reactions are specific for the carrier protein (Dcp), it is suggested that Dcp has a unique binding site which interacts with the poly(Gro-P) moiety of LTA. It is this specific interaction that provides the functional specificity for the d-alanylation process. The reversibility of this process provides a mechanism for the transacylation of the d-alanyl ester residues between LTA and wall teichoic acid.
An overview of S-NPP VIIRS lunar calibration

The S-NPP VIIRS has operated for more than 3.5 years since its launch in October 2011. The VIIRS reflective solar bands (RSB) calibration is performed by an on-board solar diffuser (SD) and a solar diffuser stability monitor (SDSM). In addition, lunar observations have been used to monitor the RSB on-orbit calibration stability. Since launch, more than 30 lunar calibration events have been scheduled and successfully implemented. This paper provides an overview of S-NPP VIIRS lunar calibration strategies and methodologies. It presents and compares the calibration results derived from regularly scheduled lunar observations with those derived from on-board SD observations. The differences between the solar and lunar calibrations and their likely causes are carefully examined and discussed as an effort for future improvements.
Understanding the Security Properties of Ballot-Based Verification Techniques

As interest in the concept of verifiable elections has increased, so has interest in a variety of ballot-oriented mechanisms that offer the potential for more efficient verification than traditional precinct- or machine-level audits. Unfortunately, threat analysis of these methods has lagged their design and in some cases implementation. This makes it difficult for policy makers to assess the merits and applicability of these techniques. This paper provides a fairly non-technical description of the security threats facing these systems with the intent of informing deployment decisions
Predicting the Accuracy of Optical Tracking Systems

Optical tracking is a technology to localize the position and rotation of objects continuously with the help of optical cameras. Optical tracking is a basic technology used in many applications. In augmented reality tracking is used to augment real objects with virtual informations. To place the informations at the right position, the position and viewing direction of the observer and that of the objects to be augmented have to be determined. To determine an accurate relationship between real and virtual object it is necessary to take the measurements as precise as possible, but even with great diligence and precision noisy errors will be inevitable. The noise on the image plane of the camera can lead to considerable errors in the localization of the objects. In certain applications for instance in the medical domain it is necessary to know and minimize these errors a priori and at runtime The noise in measurements can be described with a gaussian error model. Together with the error propagation rules it is for instance possible to predict the localization error. With the help of the gaussian error model and the error propagation rules several mathematical models are developed which allow to predict the expected uncertainty based on noise errors. The error propagation is widely used in this thesis eg. for the two developed applications which can quantitatively predict the accuracy of an optical tracking system with more than two cameras.
Data-Driven Methods for the Detection of Causal Structures in Process Technology

In modern industrial plants, process units are strongly cross-linked with eachother, and disturbances occurring in one unit potentially become plant-wide. This can leadto a flood of alarms at the supervisory control and data acquisition system, hiding the originalfault causing the disturbance. Hence, one major aim in fault diagnosis is to backtrackthe disturbance propagation path of the disturbance and to localize the root cause of thefault. Since detecting correlation in the data is not sufficient to describe the direction of thepropagation path, cause-effect dependencies among process variables need to be detected.Process variables that show a strong causal impact on other variables in the process comeinto consideration as being the root cause. In this paper, different data-driven methods areproposed, compared and combined that can detect causal relationships in data while solelyrelying on process data. The information of causal dependencies is used for localization ofthe root cause of a fault. All proposed methods consist of a statistical part, which determineswhether the disturbance traveling from one process variable to a second is significant, and aquantitative part, which calculates the causal information the first process variable has aboutthe second. The methods are tested on simulated data from a chemical stirred-tank reactorand on a laboratory plant.
The progress in the cholinesterase quantification methods

Introduction: Determination of acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase activity has become an important tool in drug design and discovery as well as in medicine and toxicology. There are a large number of compounds that are able to modulate cholinesterase activity. These compounds can be used for pharmacological management of various disorders (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, myasthenia Gravis). Moreover, organophosphate poisoning is frequently diagnosed via a cholinesterase activity assay. This broad variety of methods has been developed over the past decades for cholinesterase activity quantification. Areas covered: This review provides a summary of the methods that are based on specific properties of cholinesterases and their interactions with native or artificial substrates. The authors also aim to provide an overview of different techniques used for the determination of quantitative cholinesterase activity. Specifically, the authors describe and discuss the manometric, potentiometric, titrimetric, photometric, fluorometric, and radioisotopic methods. Expert opinion: Existing methods are able to cover most of the problems that arise during cholinesterase activity determination. Colorimetry according to Ellman has proved to be the most useful and versatile approach. It may be used in various protocols for the determination of pesticide or nerve agent exposure or for the development of new drugs. Its possible improvement lies in optimization of hemoglobin-rich samples. The progress of the most common methods (including Ellman) depends on miniaturization and modern physical platforms (e.g., optical fibers, chip methods, or nanotechnologies).
Reaching consensus on reporting patient and public involvement (PPI) in research: methods and lessons learned from the development of reporting guidelines

Introduction Patient and public involvement (PPI) is inconsistently reported in health and social care research. Improving the quality of how PPI is reported is critical in developing a higher quality evidence base to gain a better insight into the methods and impact of PPI. This paper describes the methods used to develop and gain consensus on guidelines for reporting PPI in research studies (updated version of the Guidance for Reporting Patient and Public Involvement (GRIPP2)). Methods There were three key stages in the development of GRIPP2: identification of key items for the guideline from systematic review evidence of the impact of PPI on health research and health services, a three-phase online Delphi survey with a diverse sample of experts in PPI to gain consensus on included items and a face-to-face consensus meeting to finalise and reach definitive agreement on GRIPP2. Challenges and lessons learnt during the development of the reporting guidelines are reported. Discussion The process of reaching consensus is vital within the development of guidelines and policy directions, although debate around how best to reach consensus is still needed. This paper discusses the critical stages of consensus development as applied to the development of consensus for GRIPP2 and discusses the benefits and challenges of consensus development.
Differential geometry and multigrid for the div-grad, curl-curl and grad-div equations

This paper is concerned with the application of principles of differential geometry in multigrid for the div-grad, curl-curl and grad-div equations. First, the discrete counterpart of the formulas for edge, face and volume elements are used to derive a sequence of a commuting edge, face and volume prolongator from an arbitrary partition of unity nodal prolongator. The implied coarse topology and the normalization of the prolongators are analyzed, and it is proved that they form a discrete de Rham sequence if they are normalized. Numerical results are presented for the resulting edge pro-longator. It is shown that this edge prolongator is a generalization of the Reitzinger-Schöberl prolongator. Next, the partition of unity and commutation properties are used to prove that all matrices in a multigrid hierarchy for the considered equations can be factorized as a matrix product separating the metric and topological information. Finally, those properties are identified as requirements for the multigrid restriction to reflect the typical topological characteristics of the div-grad and curl-curl equations. Differential geometry and multigrid for the div-grad, curl-curl and grad-div equations
Développement d'un outil d'évaluation du statut fonctionnel pour les personnes âgées en visite à l'urgence

There are few tools designed to help emergency department (ED) staff to make clinical decisions regarding patient disposition following an ED visit. In response to this shortcoming, the present doctoral thesis aims to develop and validate an assessment tool of the functional status for older adults visiting ED. Specific objectives will be to document assessment practices in ED, to detai1 the development steps of the to01 and to evaluate sorne of its Psychometric properties. At the very beginning of this study, information was scarce about assessment of functional status in ED. Therefore, as a pre1iminary step an inyentory was made and content of collected to01s was analysed. ResuIts showed a huge diversity in domain coverage between tools. None of the tools covered aIl relevant domains and the applicability of sorne tools didn't meet ED requirements. Occupational therapist's (OTs) professional practice in ED was also explored with a survey conducted among OTs in the province of Quebec. Results confirmed that OTs work mostly with older adults in ED; they assess diverse areas of functioning, 75% of them using in-house assessment tools. Respondents stressed the need to develop a better tool for ED practice. The development methodology was based on stages described by Benson and Clark (1982), combined with steps suggested by Kielhofner (2006). The planning stage included identification of need, objectives, targeted population and domains, as weIl as the construction of a specification table. Construction stage was comprised of developing an initial pool of items and reviewing them with a group of experts. In the evaluation stage, the prototype was piloted with 23 subjects and rating scales were subsequently revised. Finally, a validation stage was conducted with an item analysis. Item analysis was conducted with a sample of 150 subjects. Three measurement properties were considered relevant: applicability, interrater. reliability and responsiveness. Criteria related to these properties were established to classify items as
The berkeley restaurant project

This paper describes the architecture and performance of the Berkeley Restaurant Project (BeRP), a medium-vocabulary, speaker-independent, spontaneous continuous speech understanding system currently under development at ICSI. BeRP serves as a testbed for a number of our speech-related research projects, including robust feature extraction, connectionist phonetic likelihood estimation, automatic induction of multiplepronunciation lexicons, foreign accent detection and modeling, advanced language models, and lip-reading. In addition, it has proved quite usable in its function as a database frontend, even though many of our subjects are non-native speakers of English.
The Role of Helicobacter pylori Outer Membrane Proteins in Adherence and Pathogenesis

Helicobacter pylori is one of the most successful human pathogens, which colonizes the mucus layer of the gastric epithelium of more than 50% of the world’s population. This curved, microaerophilic, Gram-negative bacterium induces a chronic active gastritis, often asymptomatic, in all infected individuals. In some cases, this gastritis evolves to more severe diseases such as peptic ulcer disease, gastric adenocarcinoma, and gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma. H. pylori has developed a unique set of factors, actively supporting its successful survival and persistence in its natural hostile ecological niche, the human stomach, throughout the individual’s life, unless treated. In the human stomach, the vast majority of H. pylori cells are motile in the mucus layer lining, but a small percentage adheres to the epithelial cell surfaces. Adherence to the gastric epithelium is important for the ability of H. pylori to cause disease because this intimate attachment facilitates: (1) colonization and persistence, by preventing the bacteria from being eliminated from the stomach, by mucus turnover and gastric peristalsis; (2) evasion from the human immune system and (3) efficient delivery of proteins into the gastric cell, such as the CagA oncoprotein. Therefore, bacteria with better adherence properties colonize the host at higher densities. H. pylori is one of the most genetically diverse bacterial species known and is equipped with an extraordinarily large set of outer membrane proteins, whose role in the infection and persistence process will be discussed in this review, as well as the different receptor structures that have been so far described for mucosal adherence.
Molecular characterisation of Vietnamese HPFH

A novel 30 kb deletion of the β‐globin gene cluster associated with the phenotype of hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin (HPFH) is described in two unrelated individuals of Vietnamese background. The Vietnamese GγAγ HPFH deletion has a unique 5′ breakpoint 3.5 kb downstream of the δ‐globin gene. The 3′ breakpoint lies approximately 8 kb upstream from the HPFH‐3 breakpoint (Henthorn et al., 1986) and in the region of the 3′ breakpoints of HPFH‐4 (Saglio et al., 1986), German and Belgian Gγ+ (Aγδβ)°‐thalassemias (Anagnou et al., 1988; Losekoot et al., 1991). Char acterisation of the 3′ breakpoint in the present study has enabled more precise localisation of other deletion breakpoints at this locus. Further evidence is provided that the 3′ breakpoint region contains functionally important sequences and that the juxtaposition of these sequences to the γ‐globin genes is a significant factor in the increased fetal hemoglobin levels. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
IMA-VR: A multimodal virtual training system for skills transfer in Industrial Maintenance and Assembly tasks

Industrial Maintenance and Assembly is a very complex task involving both cognitive skills (procedural skills) and motor skills (fine motor control and bi-manual coordination skills). This paper presents a controlled multimodal training system, for transferring the motor and cognitive skills involved in these tasks. The new platform provides different multimodal aids and learning strategies that help and guide the users during their training process. One of the main features of this system is its flexibility to adapt itself to the task demands and to the users' preferences and needs supporting different configurations. To address bi-manual operations the platform offers different alternatives, one of them is a set-up composed of a haptic device to track the motion of the operator's dominant hand and simulate the physical interaction within the virtual environment, together with a marker-less motion capture system to track the motion of the other hand in real time.
Mentoring in physical education and sports coaching

Section 1: Theories of Mentoring 1. Mentoring: A Primer (Fiona C. Chambers, Thomas Templin & Bryan McCullick) 2. 'Mentoring' and Professional Development (Kathleen Armour) 3. The Pedagogy of Mentoring: Process and Practice (Fiona C. Chambers) Section 2: Sociocultural Factors and Mentoring 4. Mentoring Youth (Rachel Sandford) 5. Mentoring, 'Race' and Ethnicity (Liam O'Callaghan) 6. Mentoring: Special Educational Needs and Disability (Hayley Fitzgerald) 7. Mentoring and Gender (Liam O'Callaghan) 8. Mentoring and Volunteerism (Julia Walsh) Section 3: Mentoring and Physical Education 9. Effective Models of Mentoring for Schools: Policy and Practice (Sinead Luttrell) 10. Training Mentor Teachers across the Career-span (Fiona C. Chambers) 11. Mentoring Pre-service Teachers within a School-University Partnership (Fiona C. Chambers) 12. The Voice of the Pre-service teacher in the Group Mentoring Process (Pilvikki Heikinaro-Johannsson, Mirja Hirvensalo, Terhi Huovinen & Sanna Palomaki) 13. Peer-mentoring and the power dynamics of the HPETE triadic relationship (Louise McCuaig, Simone Hare & Sue Monsen) 14. E-Mentoring in Physical Education: A Case Study (Nate McCaughtry, Pamela Hodges Kulinna, Donetta Cothran, Michalis Stylianou & Ja Youn Kwon) Section 4: Mentoring and Sport Coaching 15. National Governing Bodies: Sport Policy, Practice and Mentoring (Tania Cassidy, Joan Merrilees, & Sally Shaw) 16. Mentoring for Success in Sport Coaching (Chris Cushion) 17. Training Coaches as Mentors (Mark Griffiths) 18. Mentoring High Performance Athletes (Clifford J. Mallett, Matthew Emmett & Steven B. Rynne) 19. Designing Sustainable Models of Mentoring for Sports Clubs (Julia Walsh) Section 5: The Mentor Pedagogy Toolbox: An ecological systems perspective 20. The Mentor Pedagogy Toolbox: An ecological systems perspective (Fiona C. Chambers)