Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Corona Enhancement and Mosaic Architecture for Prognosis and Selection Between of Liver Resection Versus Transcatheter Arterial Chemoembolization in Single Hepatocellular Carcinomas >5 cm Without Extrahepatic Metastases

AbstractCorona enhancement and mosaic architecture are 2 radiologic features of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, neither their prognostic values nor their impacts on the selection of liver resection (LR) versus transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) as treatment modalities have been established.We retrospectively analyzed 275 patients with a single HCC lesion >5 cm without extrahepatic metastasis treated with LR or TACE. In LR patients, the overall survival (OS) and time to progression (TTP) were compared between corona enhancement negative (corona−) versus positive (corona+) and mosaic architecture negative (mosaic−) versus positive (mosaic+) patients. Furthermore, by the combination of corona and mosaic, LR patients were divided into negative for both corona and mosaic patterns (LR−/−), positive for only 1 feature (LR+/−), and positive for both (LR+/+); their OS and TTP were compared to those of the TACE group. Cox regression was performed to identify independent factors for OS.In the survival plots for LR, corona− had better OS and TTP than corona+, and mosaic− had better OS than mosaic+. There was no significant difference in TTP between the subgroups. On Cox regression analysis, corona enhancement, but not mosaic architecture, was a significant factor for OS, whereas neither were a significant factor for TTP. In TACE patients, neither corona nor mosaic patterns had significant correlations with OS or TTP. In the whole population, LR−/ and LR+/− subgroups had similar OS, which was better than the LR+/+ and TACE groups. Moreover, LR−/− and LR+/− patients had better TTP than TACE patients, but there were no differences between the LR−/− versus LR+/−, LR−/ versus LR+/+, LR+/− versus LR+/+, and LR+/+ versus TACE groups. On Cox regression analysis, the presence of corona/mosaic patterns was an independent prognostic factor for OS.Our results showed that, for patients with a single HCC >5 cm without extrahepatic metastasis, corona and mosaic patterns are indicators of limited LR efficacy. When both of the features are present, TACE can be used instead of LR with no negative influence on survival.
A fast-match approach for robust, faster than real-time speaker diarization

During the past few years, speaker diarization has achieved satisfying accuracy in terms of speaker Diarization Error Rate (DER). The most successful approaches, based on agglomerative clustering, however, exhibit an inherent computational complexity which makes real-time processing, especially in combination with further processing steps, almost impossible. In this article we present a framework to speed up agglomerative clustering speaker diarization. The basic idea is to adopt a computationally cheap method to reduce the hypothesis space of the more expensive and accurate model selection via Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). Two strategies based on the pitch-correlogram and the unscented-trans-form based approximation of KL-divergence are used independently as a fast-match approach to select the most likely clusters to merge. We performed the experiments using the existing ICSI speaker diarization system. The new system using KL-divergence fast-match strategy only performs 14% of total BIC comparisons needed in the baseline system, speeds up the system by 41% without affecting the speaker Diarization Error Rate (DER). The result is a robust and faster than real-time speaker diarization system.
Learning Structural Decision Trees from Examples

STRUCT is a system that learns structural decision trees from positive and negative examples. The algorithm uses a modification of Pagallo and Haussler's FRINGE algorithm to construct new features in a first-order representation. Experiments compare the effects of different hypothesis evaluation strategies, domain representation, and feature construction. STRUCT is also compared with Quinlan's FOIL on two domains. The results show that a modified FRINGE algorithm improves accuracy, but that it is sensitive to the distribution of the examples.
Collision-Free Composite ?3–Splines Generation for Nonholonomic Mobile Robots by Parallel Variable-Length Genetic Algorithm

A G3-continuous path planner for wheeled non-holonomic mobile robots is presented, where the path is a composite curve composed of a number of eta3-splines segments. Based on the variable-length genetic algorithm implemented in the architecture of island parallel genetic algorithm (IPGA), the path planner automatically selects the number and locations of an ordered sequence of intermediate nodes aiming for collision-free shorter composite eta3-spline path generation. The experimental result demonstrates the capability of the proposed evolutionary path planner.
Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study

Background and Purpose—Blood pressure (BP) is a predictor of concurrent and subsequently measured white-matter hyperintensity (WMH), but longitudinal studies of WMH changes and data in black participants are lacking. We hypothesized that WMH progression would be (1) strongly related to BP in blacks and whites and (2) predicted more strongly by earlier (midlife) or cumulative BP measurements than by measures at older ages. Methods—Participants were 983 individuals (49% black) from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study who underwent cerebral magnetic resonance imaging in 1993–1995 and 2004–2006. Associations between BP (measured at each of 5 visits, in addition to a time-averaged cumulative BP) and progression of WMHs were analyzed and compared. Results—Cumulative systolic BP (SBP) was the strongest BP predictor of WMH progression in adjusted models. Higher cumulative SBP (by 20 mm Hg) was associated with greater progression of WMHs and was similar in blacks (2.5 cm, P 0.0001) and whites (2.6 cm, P 0.0001). Higher cumulative SBP (per 20 mm Hg) was also associated with being in the top quintile of WMH progression (adjusted odds ratio 2.0; 95% CI, 1.6 to 2.6). Earlier SBP measurements were stronger predictors of WMH progression than were later SBP measurements, but in blacks only. Conclusions—In this population-based cohort, cumulative SBP was a stronger predictor of WMH progression than SBP from individual visits, in both blacks and whites. Earlier BPs were stronger predictors than BPs measured at later time points in blacks only. (Stroke. 2010;41:3-8.)
Psychosocial functioning is correlated with activation in the anterior cingulate cortex and left lateral prefrontal cortex during a verbal fluency task in euthymic bipolar disorder: A preliminary fMRI study

Cognitive impairment may account for functional and occupational disability in patients with bipolar disorder even during periods of euthymia. While imaging suggests structural, neurochemical, and functional abnormalities in bipolar disorder patients, the pathophysiology of these deficits has not been elucidated. It was hypothesized that euthymic bipolar patients would have different cortical activation during a verbal fluency task compared to healthy controls, and that psychosocial functioning would be associated with prefrontal cortical activation during the task in the bipolar group.
Limiting Long-Term Unemployment and Non-Participation in Sweden

After the onset of the crisis, unemployment in Sweden increased markedly, though much less than expected and than during the early 1990s, even as participation in the labour market held up well. The challenge going forward is to ensure that high unemployment does not become entrenched or leads to withdrawals from the labour force. The government has taken measures to mitigate this risk, particularly in the areas of job-search incentives and enrolment in education. Nevertheless, additional reforms are needed to ensure a sustained job-rich expansion. Such reforms should focus on increasing the flexibility of the labour market and strengthening job-search incentives further. This Working Paper relates to the 2011 OECD Economic Survey of Sweden (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/Sweden). Limiter le Chomage de Longue Duree et la Non-Participation a l'Activite en Suede Apres qu’a eclate la crise, le chomage en Suede a augmente fortement, bien que beaucoup moins que prevu et que pendant le debut des annees 90, meme si la participation au marche du travail s’est bien maintenue. Le defi pour l’avenir consistera a eviter que le haut niveau de chomage ne perdure ou ne conduise a des retraits de la vie active. Le gouvernement a pris des mesures pour attenuer ce risque, en particulier avec des incitations a la recherche d’emploi et en encourageant le recours a la formation. Neanmoins, d’autres reformes seront necessaires pour garantir une croissance soutenue riche en emplois. Il faudrait s’attacher a accroitre la flexibilite du marche du travail et a renforcer davantage encore les incitations a la recherche d’emploi. Ce document se rapporte a l’Etude economique de la Suede de l’OCDE, 2011 (www.oecd.org/eco/etudes/suede).
The k-traveling repairmen problem

We consider the k-traveling repairmen problem, also known as the minimum latency problem, to multiple repairmen. We give a polynomial-time 8. 497α-approximation algorithm for this generalization, where α denotes the best achievable approximation factor for the problem of finding the least-cost rooted tree spanning i vertices of a metric. For the latter problem, a (2 + ε)-approximation is known. Our results can be compared with the best-known approximation algorithm using similar techniques for the case k = 1, which is 3. 59α. Moreover, recent work of Chaudry et al. [2003] shows how to remove the factor of α, thus improving all of these results by that factor. We are aware of no previous work on the approximability of the present problem. In addition, we give a simple proof of the 3. 59α-approximation result that can be more easily extended to the case of multiple repairmen, and may be of independent interest.
Going Beyond Literal Command-Based Instructions: Extending Robotic Natural Language Interaction Capabilities

The ultimate goal of human natural language interaction is to communicate intentions. However, these intentions are often not directly derivable from the semantics of an utterance (e.g., when linguistic modulations are employed to convey polite-ness, respect, and social standing). Robotic architectures withsimple command-based natural language capabilities are thus not equipped to handle more liberal, yet natural uses of linguistic communicative exchanges. In this paper, we propose novel mechanisms for inferring in-tentions from utterances and generating clarification requests that will allow robots to cope with a much wider range of task-based natural language interactions. We demonstrate the potential of these inference algorithms for natural human-robot interactions by running them as part of an integrated cognitive robotic architecture on a mobile robot in a dialogue-based instruction task.
Carbon-11-methionine PET in focal cortical dysplasia: a comparison with fluorine-18-FDG PET and technetium-99m-ECD SPECT.

UNLABELLED Focal cortical dysplasia is one of the known neuronal migration disorders and has recently been recognized as a cause of intractable epilepsy. In this study, we assessed the 11C-methionine (MET) uptake in focal cortical dysplasia by PET, and then compared the results with that of 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) PET and 99mTc-ethyl cysteinate dimer (ECD) SPECT. METHODS Four patients (3 men, 1 woman; age range 16-68 yr) were examined by PET and SPECT for a presurgical examination of medically intractable seizures. In all 4 patients, 11C-MET PET was performed for 15 min, started 15 min after the administration of 511-662 MBq MET. In 3 of 4 patients, FDG PET was performed for 15 min, and started 20 min after the administration of 185-370 MBq FDG. In all 4 patients, the cerebral blood flow was also evaluated by 99mTc-ECD SPECT for 15 min after the administration of 600 MBq ECD. RESULTS In MET PET, all 4 lesions were visually recognized to have high MET uptake areas. The MET uptake of the lesions was 1.44 +/- 0.30 for the standardized uptake value (SUV) (ranging from 0.99-1.61). In FDG PET, 2 lesions were demonstrated to have low uptake areas (3.82 in SUV) while 1 had an ictal high uptake (4.74 in SUV). In ECD SPECT, 1 lesion demonstrated hypoperfusion and 1 ictal hyperperfusion while 2 showed no abnormalities. All 4 patients underwent a cortical resection and the microscopic examinations were consistent with those of focal cortical dysplasia but no evidence of a tumor was found. CONCLUSION MET PET is useful for identifying focal cortical dysplasia as a high uptake area.
Intersections of Gay and Bisexual Identity with Fatness

This thesis examines the intersections of gay and bisexual identity with body size, or fatness. Gay and bisexual identity and fatness are marginalized social identities that seem to be incompatible (Bond, 2013). While a sense of collective identity with the gay and bisexual community has been shown to be a protective factor against internalized homonegativity in gay and bisexual men (Halpin & Allen, 2004), the degree to which this protective factor persists for fat people in an anti-fat environment like the gay and bisexual community (Wrench & Knapp, 2008) has not been explored. This intersection of identities and anti-fat culture seemed to suggest there might be a relationship between fatness and internalized homophobia. Fatness did not moderate the relationship between sense of belonging to the gay and bisexual community and internalized homonegativity, but a significant positive relationship was found between belongingness to the gay and bisexual community and body shame.
MEMORY FOR PICTURES: Sometimes a Picture Is Not Worth a Single Word

2 Memory for pictures: Sometimes a picture is not worth a single word Although there are some phenomena in memory that are poorly understood, it is generally accepted that an item studied as a picture will be better remembered than an item studied as a word. Most of us are familiar with the expression, " a picture is worth a thousand words " and agree that memory for pictures is remarkable. Indeed in most situations, it would be wise to assume that pictures will be better remembered than words. One picture can contain enough information to convey many sentences. Children learn to follow stories in picture books before they are able to comprehend written text. Pictures are often universal and not restricted by knowledge of a specific language. For example, even if a traveler cannot read the local language, s/he can find the ladies' or the men's room in virtually any country by looking at picture signs. Conventional wisdom amongst many memory theorists also holds that pictures are better remembered than words on recognition tests (e. Csapo, 1973) explains this seemingly ubiquitous phenomena as follows: when pictures are studied, they elicit their verbal label and thus two representations or codes are stored in memory. In contrast, words do not automatically elicit a picture, and thus they have a relatively impoverished memory representation. The redundant representation for pictures makes their retrieval or recognition 3 more probable compared to stimuli studied as words. The explanation offered by Paivio implies that there are limits on the picture superiority effect; however memory experts sometimes only remember the general phenomenon and forget the theoretical explanation for its occurrence. 1 In this chapter we will reexamine the conditions under which picture memory is superior to word memory. We will review evidence from the literature and present data of our own work that demonstrate when picture recognition is neither superior to, nor even comparable to word recognition. As part of the discussion of the attributes of situations that cause picture-inferiority, we will elaborate Paivio's Dual Code Theory. First, we review the conditions under which pictures are better remembered than words. Next we discuss the conditions that produce the picture-inferiority effect. Pictures are better remembered than words. The finding of better memory for pictures compared to words was reported as early as the 19 th century (Kirkpatrick, 1894). Kirkpatrick demonstrated that real objects were better remembered than either …
Evaluation of X-ray properties of 3 D printing materials for preclinical Positron Emission Tomography / Computed Tomography ( PET / CT ) phantom development

The principles of the 3R’s are a framework for conducting quality, humane research throughout the industry. The objective of this study was to identify best practices for in-life and terminal blood sample collection procedures in an effort to refine our bio methodology techniques to prevent the need for additional invasive collection methods and reduce the potential number of animals impacted by repeat studies. Differences in sample quality among five in-life sampling techniques and three terminal blood collection methods in 10 week old, female C57BL/6 mice were evaluated. A blocking design for sample collection minimized bias in order of collection, timing, and phlebotomy skill. Results of this study identified tail venipuncture method as having the best sample integrity with the parameters measured. This study provides helpful guidelines for obtaining high-quality samples and demonstrates the substantial impact of phlebotomy method on clinical pathology results.
Social Media and the Public Sphere

Social media has become a key term in Media and Communication Studies and public discourse for characterising platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Blogspot, Weibo, Pinterest, Foursquare and Tumblr. This paper discusses the role of the concept of the public sphere for understanding social media critically. It argues against an idealistic interpretation of Habermas and for a cultural-materialist understanding of the public sphere concept that is grounded in political economy. It sets out that Habermas’ original notion should best be understood as a method of immanent critique that critically scrutinises limits of the media and culture grounded in power relations and political economy. The paper introduces a theoretical model of public service media that it uses as foundation for identifying three antagonisms of the contemporary social media sphere in the realms of the economy, the state and civil society. It concludes that these limits can only be overcome if the colonisation of the social media lifeworld is countered politically so that social media and the Internet become public service and commons-based media. Acknowledgement: This paper is the extended version of Christian Fuchs’ inaugural lecture for his professorship of social media at the University of Westminster that he took up on February 1 st , 2013. He gave the lecture on February 19 th , 2014, at the University of Westminster. The video version of the inaugural lecture is available at: https://vimeo.com/97173645
Agent-Based Distributed Control Schemes for Distributed Energy Storage Systems Under Cyber Attacks

In this paper, the ratios of the required power exchange by the distributed energy storage systems (DESSs) to their power capacity/maximum allowed power for charging or discharging operations are used as information to be exchanged among different battery agents associated with respective to DESSs. First, a fuzzy logic-based information deviation detection scheme is proposed for detection of the effects of cyber-attacks on the information. Two distributed control schemes, based on leader-follower distributed control schemes, are proposed to decide the power exchange by DESS under cyber-attack scenarios. A consensus-based leader-follower distributed control scheme under cyber-attacks, with an arbitrary topology, is proposed while incorporating information deviation detection scheme. Furthermore, a novel agent-based secure distributed optimal control scheme is proposed for charging and discharging of distributed energy storage systems. Linear quadratic regulator-based distributed optimal control scheme is incorporated in this scheme. In both proposed control schemes, the information deviation of agents is monitored and, based on their information deviations, the control actions are taken to ensure agents’ information convergence. The electricity consumption data of a practical medium-voltage distribution system is used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes. Both control schemes are demonstrated to ensure peak shaving operations in the power distribution system, which may consist of an unreliable communication network, by DESSs.
A General Evaluation Criteria for Web Applications Maintainability Models

Many World Wide Web applications incorporate important business assets and offer a convenient way for businesses to promote their services through the Internet. Many of these Web applications evolved from simple HTML pages to complex applications which are difficult to maintain. Several maintainability models have been proposed for measuring the maintainability of Web applications. It is difficult to choose between the different maintainability models since no common criteria exists for evaluating them. In this paper, we introduce a general evaluation criteria for maintainability models (ECMM) which is applied on a sample Web application.
Homological mirror symmetry and torus fibrations

In this paper we discuss two major conjectures in Mirror Symmetry: Strominger-Yau-Zaslow conjecture about torus fibrations, and the homological mirror conjecture (about an equivalence of the Fukaya category of a Calabi-Yau manifold and the derived category of coherent sheaves on the dual Calabi-Yau manifold). Our point of view on the origin of torus fibrations is based on the standard differential-geometric picture of collapsing Riemannian manifolds as well as analogous considerations for Conformal Field Theories. It seems to give a description of mirror manifolds much more transparent than the one in terms of D-branes. Also we make an attempt to prove the homological mirror conjecture using the torus fibrations. In the case of abelian varieties, and for a large class of Lagrangian submanifolds, we obtain an identification of Massey products on the symplectic and holomorphic sides. Tools used in the proof are of a mixed origin: not so classical Morse theory, homological perturbation theory and non-archimedean analysis.
A Sparse Reconstruction Algorithm for Multi-Frequency Radio Images

In radio interferometry, every pair of antennas in an array defines one sampling point in the Fourier domain of the sky image. By combining information from different wavelengths, sample coverage - and therefore reconstruction quality - can be increased. However, the images at different wavelengths can be dramatically dissimilar; this fact must be taken into account when reconstructing multi-frequency images. In this paper, we present a novel reconstruction algorithm based on the assumption that the spectrum is continuous. In contrast to prior work, we allow for sparse deviations from this assumption: this allows, for example, for accurate reconstruction of line spectra superimposed on a continuum. Using simulated measurements on synthetic multi-frequency images, we show that the proposed approach provides significant improvements over a comparable method based solely on a continuity assumption.