Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk adjusted mortality of critical illness in a defined geographical region

Aims: To evaluate the performance of the Paediatric Risk of Mortality (PRISM) score in a population of UK children and to use this score to examine severity of illness adjusted mortality of critically ill children <16 years old in a defined geographical region. Methods: Observational study of a defined population of critically ill children (<16 years old) admitted to hospitals in the South West Region between 1 December 1996 and 30 November 1998. Results: Data were collected from 1148 eligible admissions. PRISM was found to perform acceptably in this population. There was no significant difference between the overall number of observed deaths and those predicted by PRISM. Admissions with mortality risk 30% or greater had significantly greater odds ratio for death in general intensive care units compared with the tertiary paediatric intensive care unit. Conclusions: Children with a high initial risk of mortality based on PRISM score were significantly more likely to survive in a tertiary paediatric intensive care unit than in general intensive care units in this region. However, there was no evidence from this study that admissions with lower mortality risk than 30% had significantly worse mortality in non-tertiary general units than in tertiary paediatric intensive care units.
Automated Usability Evaluation of WIMP and Web Interfaces

Usability evaluation is an increasingly important part of the iterative design process. It is also a major bottleneck. Automated usability evaluation is one way to mitigate this bottleneeck. We present an extensive survey of existing automated methods for evaluating WIMP and Web interfaces. Our survey shows that while potentially beneficial, automated usability is greatly underexplored, especially for Web interfaces.
Comparing Four Static Analysis Tools for Java Concurrency Bugs

Static analysis (SA) tools are being used for early detection of software defects. Concurrency bugs are different from bugs in sequential programs, and they are often harder to detect. This paper presents the evaluation of four static analysis tools and their capabilities to detect Java concurrency bugs and bug patterns. The tools, i.e., Coverity Prevent, Jtest, FindBugs, and Jlint, are evaluated using concurrent benchmark programs and a collection of multithreaded bug patterns. In addition, we have categorized the bug pattern detectors of the tools and also identified 87 unique bug patterns from the tools’ detectors and literature.
Fast and Scalable Analysis of Massive Social Graphs

Graph analysis is a critical component of applications such as online social networks, protein interactions in biological networks, and Internet traffic analysis. The arrival of massive graphs with hundreds of millions of nodes, e.g. social graphs, presents a unique challenge to graph analysis applications. Most of these applications rely on computing distances between node pairs, which for large graphs can take minutes to compute using traditional algorithms such as breadth-first-search (BFS). In this paper, we study ways to enable scalable graph processing on today's massive graphs. We explore the design space of graph coordinate systems, a new approach that accurately approximates node distances in constant time by embedding graphs into coordinate spaces. We show that a hyperbolic embedding produces relatively low distortion error, and propose Rigel, a hyperbolic graph coordinate system that lends itself to efficient parallelization across a compute cluster. Rigel produces significantly more accurate results than prior systems, and is naturally parallelizable across compute clusters, allowing it to provide accurate results for graphs up to 43 million nodes. Finally, we show that Rigel's functionality can be easily extended to locate (near-) shortest paths between node pairs. After a one- time preprocessing cost, Rigel answers node-distance queries in 10's of microseconds, and also produces shortest path results up to 18 times faster than prior shortest-path systems with similar levels of accuracy.
Characterization of a Human Monoclonal Antibody against Shiga Toxin 2 Expressed in Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells

ABSTRACT Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli infections can often lead to the development of hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) in a small percentage of infected humans. Patients with HUS receive only supportive treatment as the benefit of antibiotic therapy remains uncertain. We have previously reported the generation and preclinical evaluation of neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies (HuMAbs) against the Shiga toxins (Stx). In this paper, we describe the expression in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells of 5C12 HuMAb, which is directed against the A subunit of Stx2. The cDNAs of the light and heavy chain immunoglobulin (Ig) variable regions of 5C12 HuMAb were isolated and cloned into an expression vector containing human IgG1 constant regions. The vector was transfected into CHO cells, and transfectants secreting Stx2-specific antibody were screened by an Stx2-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The CHO-produced recombinant 5C12 (r5C12) showed similar specificity and binding affinity to Stx2 as the parent hybridoma-produced 5C12. More significantly, the r5C12 displayed the same neutralizing activity as the parent 5C12 in vitro and in vivo. In the mouse toxicity model, both antibodies significantly and equally prolonged survival at a dose of 0.312 μg/mouse. The data showed that since r5C12, produced in CHO cells, was equally effective as the parent 5C12, it is our choice candidate as a potential prophylactic or therapeutic agent against hemolytic-uremic syndrome.
Do Skill-Based Conditioning Games Offer a Specific Training Stimulus for Junior Elite Volleyball Players?

This study investigated the specificity of skill-based conditioning games and compared the effectiveness of skill-based conditioning games and instructional training for improving physical fitness and skill in junior elite volleyball players. Twenty-five junior volleyball players (mean age ± SE, 15.6 ± 0.1 years) participated in this study. Heart rate data were collected on all players during the Australian Junior Volleyball Championships. After the competition, players were randomly allocated into a skill-based conditioning games group (n = 12) or an instructional training group (n = 13). Each player participated in a 12-week training program that included 3 organized court training sessions per week. No significant differences (P > 0.05) were detected between competition and skill-based conditioning games for the percentage of time spent in low-intensity, moderate-intensity, and high-intensity activities. Skill-based conditioning games induced improvements in vertical jump, spike jump, speed, agility, upper-body muscular power, and estimated maximal aerobic power, whereas technical instruction improved only spike jump and speed. Conversely, instructional training induced meaningful improvements in all measurements of skill, whereas improvements in technical skill after skill-based conditioning games were uncommon and typically small. The results of this study show that skill-based conditioning games offer a specific training stimulus to simulate the physiological demands of competition in junior elite volleyball players. Although the improvements in physical fitness after training were greater with skill-based conditioning games, instructional training resulted in greater improvements in technical skill in these athletes. These findings suggest that a combination of instructional training and skill-based conditioning games is likely to confer the greatest improvements in fitness and skill in junior elite volleyball players.
Linear Programming Based Pilot Allocation in TDD Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Systems

By providing substantial gains in terms of both spectral and energy-efficiency, Massive MIMO is expected to be the promising enabler for the fifth generation (5G) communications. However the performance of massive MIMO is greatly affected by pilot contamination due to the insufficiency of pilot sequences. To overcome this, we propose a linear programming based pilot allocation with the purpose of alleviating the effect of pilot contamination and maximizing the system throughput. We first formulate the pilot allocation as a user clustering problem, which can be converted to a linear programming one by introducing the integer factor and constraint relaxation. An efficient linear programming algorithm is proposed to solve the problem. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms the other candidates in the presence of pilot contamination.
Bio-inspired probabilistic model for crowd emotion detection

Detection of emotions of a crowd is a new research area, which has never, to our knowledge, been accounted for research in previous literature. A bio-inspired model for representation of emotional patterns in crowds has been demonstrated. Emotions have been defined as evolving patterns as part of a dynamic pattern of events. This model has been developed to detect emotions of a crowd based on the knowledge from a learned context, psychology and experience of people in crowd management. The emotions of multiple people making a crowd in any surveillance environment are estimated by sensors signals such as a camera and are being tracked and their behavior is modeled using bio-inspired dynamic model. The behavior changes correspond to changes in emotions. The proposed algorithm involves the probabilistic signal processing modelling techniques for analysis of different types of behavior, interaction detection and estimation of emotions. The emotions are recognized by the expectation of temporal occurrences of causal events modeled by Gaussian mixture model. The model has been evaluated using the simulated behavioral model of a crowd.
Metaheuristics for solving a real-world frequency assignment problem in GSM networks

The Frequency Assignment Problem (FAP) is one of the key issues in the design of GSM networks (Global System for Mobile communications), and will remain important in the foreseeable future. There are many versions of FAP, most of them benchmarking-like problems. We use a formulation of FAP, developed in published work, that focuses on aspects which are relevant for real-world GSM networks. In this paper, we have designed, adapted, and evaluated several types of metaheuristic for different time ranges. After a detailed statistical study, results indicate that these metaheuristics are very appropriate for this FAP. New interference results have been obtained, that significantly improve those published in previous research.
A Systematic Approach to Calf and Heifer Rearing: "Intensified" Feeding and the Target Growth System

Growth is an essential component of the dairy enterprise, yet many of us that work in the dairy industry have had little training or background in applied aspects of animal growth. We are more comfortable with concepts involving milk yield and composition primarily because that is where we generate income. However, to improve calf and heifer management, we must understand basic concepts of applied growth so that better recommendations can be developed.
Application of Calcined Eggshell Powder as Functional Filler for High Density Polyethylene

Calcined eggshell powder, prepared from waste eggshell, was melted mixed with HDPE at contents of 10–40 wt%. It was shown that calcined eggshell powder was a good functional filler for HDPE. Young's modulus and ultimate stress of the filled HDPE increased with increasing the filler content. In addition, thermal decomposition temperature and yield strength of the filled HDPE were not significantly influenced by the addition of the filler. Compatibilizing the filled HDPE with 2 wt% maleic anhydride grafted HDPE improved impact strength of the filled HDPE according to homogeneous distribution of the filler.
Comprehensive evaluation of in vitro toxicity of three large-scale produced carbon nanotubes on human Jurkat T cells and a comparison to crocidolite asbestos

Abstract This study has evaluated the effects of three industrially relevant multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) on human Jurkat T cells and compared them to those of crocidolite asbestos. No overt acute toxicity was observed for all MWNTs tested although signs of oxidative stress were evident. MWNTs did not activate resting Jurkat cells and only slightly stimulated the release of the cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) in activated cells. Similar to MWNTs, crocidolite had little toxic effects on Jurkat cells but neither induced the formation of reactive oxygen species nor changes in IL-2 signaling. These findings suggest that, in contrast to many other cell types, T cells are relatively resistant to stress induced by high-aspect ratio particles.
Coronary heart disease Performance of EuroSCORE in CABG and off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting : single institution experience and meta-analysis

CLINICAL RESEARCH Coronary heart disease
Roadmap-Based Path Planning - Using the Voronoi Diagram for a Clearance-Based Shortest Path

Path planning still remains one of the core problems in modern robotic applications, such as the design of autonomous vehicles and perceptive systems. The basic path-planning problem is concerned with finding a good-quality path from a source point to a destination point that does not result in collision with any obstacles. In this article, we chose the roadmap approach and utilized the Voronoi diagram to obtain a path that is a close approximation of the shortest path satisfying the required clearance value set by the user. The advantage of the proposed technique versus alternative path-planning methods is in its simplicity, versatility, and efficiency.
From seeing to believing: labelling strategies for in vivo cell-tracking experiments

Intravital microscopy has become increasingly popular over the past few decades because it provides high-resolution and real-time information about complex biological processes. Technological advances that allow deeper penetration in live tissues, such as the development of confocal and two-photon microscopy, together with the generation of ever-new fluorophores that facilitate bright labelling of cells and tissue components have made imaging of vertebrate model organisms efficient and highly informative. Genetic manipulation leading to expression of fluorescent proteins is undoubtedly the labelling method of choice and has been used to visualize several cell types in vivo. This approach, however, can be technically challenging and time consuming. Over the years, several dyes have been developed to allow rapid, effective and bright ex vivo labelling of cells for subsequent transplantation and imaging. Here, we review and discuss the advantages and limitations of a number of strategies commonly used to label and track cells at high resolution in vivo in mouse and zebrafish, using fluorescence microscopy. While the quest for the perfect label is far from achieved, current reagents are valuable tools enabling the progress of biological discovery, so long as they are selected and used appropriately.
Tool Wear Investigation on Dry Electrostatic Cooling in Turning Titanium Alloy Ti6Al4V

The machinability of Titanium Alloy Ti6Al4V is poor, the traditional methods to machining is application of cutting fluids with the active additives which cause environmental pollution and health problems. In this paper, the dry electrostatic cooling was applied instead of cutting fluid for the aim of green cutting Ti6Al4V. The ionized device and gas supply system was set up, the effects of dry electrostatic cooling, emulsion oil and dry cutting on tool wear have been examined in turning of Ti6Al4V with carbide tools YG8, the curve between tool flank wear and cutting time was proposed, and the equation between cutting speed and tool life was set up. The results of experiments indicated that application of dry electrostatic cooling reduced the tool wear and increased the tool life. The research results show that clean production was achieved in metal cutting associated with dry electrostatic cooling.
Significantly Improved HIV Inhibitor Efficacy Prediction Employing Proteochemometric Models Generated From Antivirogram Data

Infection with HIV cannot currently be cured; however it can be controlled by combination treatment with multiple anti-retroviral drugs. Given different viral genotypes for virtually each individual patient, the question now arises which drug combination to use to achieve effective treatment. With the availability of viral genotypic data and clinical phenotypic data, it has become possible to create computational models able to predict an optimal treatment regimen for an individual patient. Current models are based only on sequence data derived from viral genotyping; chemical similarity of drugs is not considered. To explore the added value of chemical similarity inclusion we applied proteochemometric models, combining chemical and protein target properties in a single bioactivity model. Our dataset was a large scale clinical database of genotypic and phenotypic information (in total ca. 300,000 drug-mutant bioactivity data points, 4 (NNRTI), 8 (NRTI) or 9 (PI) drugs, and 10,700 (NNRTI) 10,500 (NRTI) or 27,000 (PI) mutants). Our models achieved a prediction error below 0.5 Log Fold Change. Moreover, when directly compared with previously published sequence data, derived models PCM performed better in resistance classification and prediction of Log Fold Change (0.76 log units versus 0.91). Furthermore, we were able to successfully confirm both known and identify previously unpublished, resistance-conferring mutations of HIV Reverse Transcriptase (e.g. K102Y, T216M) and HIV Protease (e.g. Q18N, N88G) from our dataset. Finally, we applied our models prospectively to the public HIV resistance database from Stanford University obtaining a correct resistance prediction rate of 84% on the full set (compared to 80% in previous work on a high quality subset). We conclude that proteochemometric models are able to accurately predict the phenotypic resistance based on genotypic data even for novel mutants and mixtures. Furthermore, we add an applicability domain to the prediction, informing the user about the reliability of predictions.
Replication algorithms to retrieve scalable streaming media over Content Delivery Networks

CDN (Content Delivery Networks) improves end-user performance by replicating web contents on a group of geographically distributed content servers. Replication Algorithm plays an important role in helping users to retrieve Web objects from the content servers. If a user can directly get the requested objects from the content server, he need not to contact the remote origin server and the user delay can be reduced. However, current replica strategies in CDN are to simply and repeatedly keep the complete replica of the original object on many content servers. This method has some disadvantages, including too much consumed server space and a waste of the storage cost. It is more serious for replicating some large-sized objects such as streaming media, which are being distributed over the Internet more and more.In this paper, we discuss a replication strategy for scalable video streaming in CDN to reduce user response and storage cost. Based on theoretical analysis, assuming layered video coding, we propose a novel replication algorithm which deals with following three problems. (1) How many content servers should be selected to replicate a given video content? (2) For a single video content, how many layers should be kept in a given content server? (3) After selecting a group of content servers for each video content, how do we decide the replication priority for each content server? Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can efficiently resolve the above problems, and provide much better performance than the conventional methods.
Heterogeneity of 6'-N-acetyltransferases of type 4 conferring resistance to amikacin and related aminoglycosides in members of the family Enterobacteriaceae

DNA-DNA hybridization and immunoblotting were used to assess the relatedness between the 6'-N-acetyltransferases of type 4 encoded by plasmid pAZ007 from a clinical isolate of Serratia marcescens and those encoded by NR79 and R5. The absence of detectable DNA-DNA homology and of immunological cross-reactivity suggests the existence of at least two distinct 6'-N-acetyltransferase type 4 genes that mediate amikacin resistance in gram-negative bacilli.
An Analysis of Setup Errors Using OnBoard Imager Technique in External Beam Radiotherapy for Different Cases in Radiation

Successful delivery of conformal fields requires stringent immobilization and treatment verification, as well as knowledge of the setup reproducibility. [1] Before coming OBI, electronic portal imaging detector was used to detect the setup errors. EPID images are not clear vision to identify correctly and immediately because they were produced by megavoltage X-ray during treatment setup. In OBI images are very easy to identify the errors because they are clear to vision and they are produced by kilovolt age X-rays from OBI system.
Solving optimal control problems for delayed control-affine systems with quadratic cost by numerical continuation

In this paper we introduce a new method to solve fixed-delay optimal control problems which exploits numerical homotopy procedures. It is known that solving this kind of problems via indirect methods is complex and computationally demanding because their implementation is faced with two difficulties: the extremal equations are of mixed type, and besides, the shooting method has to be carefully initialized. Here, starting from the solution of the non-delayed version of the optimal control problem, the delay is introduced by numerical homotopy methods. Convergence results, which ensure the effectiveness of the whole procedure, are provided. The numerical efficiency is illustrated on an example.
Inducible gene expression with the Tet‐on system in CD4+ T cells and thymocytes of mice

CD4+ T cells with their growing list of effector and regulatory subpopulations have vital functions within the immunohematopoietic system. We report here on the first mouse lines that allow temporally and quantitatively controlled expression of transgenes specifically in CD4+ thymocytes and T cells. These were constructed using the Tet‐on system. The rtTA2S‐M2 version of the reverse tetracycline‐dependent transactivator was placed under control of all known CD4 regulatory elements. Reporter transgene expression in mice expressing these constructs is highly specific for CD4+ cells, is strictly dependent on the tetracycline derivative doxycycline, and can be regulated by up to five logs depending on the doxycycline concentration. Moreover, we demonstrate that these mice can be used for noninvasive in vivo imaging of a coexpressed luciferase reporter. These new mouse lines should be highly valuable for studying and manipulating numerous aspects of CD4+ T cell development, biology, and function. genesis 45:427–431, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.