Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-Invasive Devices for Early Detection of Breast Tissue Oncological Abnormalities Using Microwave Radio Thermometry

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide, comprising 16% of all female cancers and is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women ages 40-55. Each year in the U.S.A. over 180,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 46,000 women die of this disease. One in twelve women in the United Kingdom develops breast cancer and the annual death toll stands at around 14,000. Over 33,000 new cases are being monitored year on year basis in the UK. In all, 10%-11% of all women can expect to be affected by breast cancer at some time during their lives. The causes of most breast cancers are not yet fully understood. Sixty years ago, MacDonald proposed that the biological behaviour of a neoplasm is established during its preclinical growth phase (MacDonald, 1951). This view is supported by some data on the behaviour of metastatic lesions such as poor cytological differentiation, lymphatic permeation, blood vessel invasion and the invasion of the surrounding soft tissue by the tumour (Nealon et al, 1979). Screening and early diagnosis are currently the most effective ways to reduce mortality from this disease. Early diagnosis and treatment are the keys to surviving breast cancer. Breast cancer survival rates vary greatly worldwide, ranging from over 80% in North America, Sweden and Japan to around 60% in middle-income countries and below 40% in low-income countries. It is believed that the low survival rates in less developed countries are mainly due to the lack of early detection programmes, resulting in a high proportion of women presenting with late-stage disease, as well as by the lack of adequate diagnosis and treatment facilities. Studies from the American National Cancer Institute show that 96 percent of women whose breast cancer is detected early live five or more years after treatment. Early diagnosis remains an important detection strategy, particularly in lowand middle-income countries where the disease is diagnosed in late stages and resources are very limited. There is some evidence that this strategy can produce "down staging" of the disease to stages that are more amenable to less aggressive treatment. Therefore, thousands of lives and considerable healthcare costs could be saved each year with treatment if early symptoms of breast cancer are detected. Taking full advantage of early diagnosis and treatment means that screening technology should have the characteristics that have high detection success rate, speed of procedure, comfort to the subject and very low health risk.
Vaccination in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis Receiving Immunotherapies

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are at higher risk to suffer from morbidity due to vaccine-preventable diseases and, thus, display an important target population to receive vaccines for protection from infectious complications. There have been only a few studies focusing on the administration of vaccines in RA patients with immunotherapy. Overall, antibody response rates against influenza or pneumococcal disease appeared to be only slightly lower than expected in healthy individuals. Crucial problems in the interpretation of data from studies in RA patients vaccinated against influenza and pneumococcal disease are the impaired comparability of studies due to different study designs and type of vaccines used, different health states among RA patients, heterogeneity in treatments including concomitant therapy with conventional DMARDs and glucocorticoids in addition to biological agents. Assessment of vaccination status should be performed in the initial work-up of patients with RA and should ideally be administered before initiation of immunotherapies or during stable disease. Due to differences in antibody responses and uncertainty regarding maintenance of protective antibodies, routine controls for antibody titers and specific strategies for earlier re-vaccination might be scheduled for patients with RA.
Patients' Experiences of Being a Burden on Family in Terminal Illness

Studies of persons with chronic and life-threatening illness have revealed a fear of being a burden on family. The purpose of this case study was to explore that concern in-depth in three persons with different terminal illnesses. Participants were part of a larger study of end-of-life decision making and were selected for this study because their illnesses are characterized by a steady decline in health (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a rapid decline (stage IV lung cancer), or an uncertain trajectory of decline (advanced heart failure). Content analysis of their interviews resulted in four themes: managing the burden, spirituality, supportive relationships, and planning for the future. Themes contained specific categories of thoughts, feelings, and actions related to fear of being a burden. These themes should be explored in greater depth in future larger studies of persons with terminal illness.
Application of an improved Apriori algorithm in a mobile e-commerce recommendation system

The purpose of this paper is to make the mobile e-commerce shopping more convenient and avoid information overload by a mobile e-commerce recommendation system using an improved Apriori algorithm. ,Combined with the characteristics of the mobile e-commerce, an improved Apriori algorithm was proposed and applied to the recommendation system. This paper makes products that are recommended to consumers valuable by improving the data mining efficiency. Finally, a Taobao online dress shop is used as an example to prove the effectiveness of an improved Apriori algorithm in the mobile e-commerce recommendation system. ,The results of the experimental study clearly show that the mobile e-commerce recommendation system based on an improved Apriori algorithm increases the efficiency of data mining to achieve the unity of real time and recommendation accuracy. ,The improved Apriori algorithm is applied in the mobile e-commerce recommendation system solving the limitation of the visual interface in a mobile terminal and the mass data that are continuously generated. The proposed recommendation system provides greater prediction accuracy than conventional systems in data mining.
Antiviral‐resistant hepatitis B virus: can we prevent this monster from growing?

Summary. Despite the recent progress in antiviral therapy of chronic hepatitis B, clinical experience has shown that antiviral drug resistance is inevitable with the administration of nucleoside analog monotherapy. The long‐term persistence of the viral genome in infected cells and the high rate of spontaneous mutation is the basis for the selection of HBV mutants that are resistant to polymerase inhibitors. Selection of antiviral‐resistant mutations leads to a rise in viral load and progression of liver disease. The incidence of antiviral resistance depends on the potency and genetic barrier to resistance of the antiviral drug, highlighting the importance of the choice if first line therapy. The determination of cross‐resistance profile of each drug has allowed the design of rescue therapy for patients with virologic breakthrough. Early diagnosis and treatment intervention allow the majority of patients to maintain in clinical remission despite the occurrence of drug resistance. Clinical studies are ongoing to determine the best strategy to prevent or delay antiviral drug resistance and of its impact on liver disease.
Using Whole-Genome Sequence Information to Foster Conservation Efforts for the European Dark Honey Bee, Apis mellifera mellifera

Pollination is a key ecosystem service for agricultural systems and Western honey bees, Apis mellifera, are the most important managed pollinators. Major losses of managed honey bee colonies reinforced the need to take advantage of locally adapted subspecies and ecotypes to buffer populations against various stressors. However, introductions of non-native honey bees from distant lineages are likely to undermine respective conservation efforts unless reliable and cost effective tools can be used to identify hybridization. The purpose of this study is to characterize current population structure and genetic diversity, and to assess the degree of admixture between native and introduced honey bees. Moreover, we aim to select a reduced number of genetic markers to improve conservation management strategies. We take advantage of recent developments in next-generation sequencing and network-based clustering to investigate conservation efforts for the native European Dark honey bee, A. m. mellifera, which is threatened by introgression in most of its range. We collected whole-genome sequence information from haploid drones of A. m. mellifera, A. m. carnica and Buckfast sampled throughout Switzerland (N=81), as well as from four Swiss A. m. mellifera conservation areas (N=39) and from one conservatory in the French Alps (N = 31). Population structure analyses based upon 3.375 M genome-wide SNPs discerned samples by subspecies and geographic origin (Switzerland or France). Ancestry inference indicated admixed individuals in all of the protected areas, calling for improved management efforts. After testing different subsets of ancestry informative SNPs using three different selection strategies (FST, PCA-based or at random), as few as 50 SNPs are found to be sufficient to differentiate native from introduced honey bees. Therefore our data suggests that a low-density SNP panel can be a precise and cost-effective tool to support conservation management efforts for managed pollinators.
The optimization of mixed integer programming problem by subgradient-based Lagrangian relaxation

Mathematical programming approaches, such as Lagrangian relaxation, have the advantage of computational efficiency when the optimization problems are decomposable. Lagrangian relaxation belongs to a class of primal-dual algorithms. Subgradient-based optimization methods can be used to optimize the dual functions in Lagrangian relaxation. In this paper, the penalty surrogate subgradient (PSS) method is adopted and compared to solve a demonstrative mixed integer programming problem to assess the performances on optimality in order to demonstrate its applicability to the realistic problem.
A design method of multidimensional linear-phase paraunitary filter banks with a lattice structure

A lattice structure of multidimensional (MD) linear-phase paraunitary filter banks (LPPUFBs) is proposed, which makes it possible to design such filter banks in a systematic manner. The proposed structure can produce MD-LPPUFBs whose filters all have the region of support /spl Nscr/(M/spl Xi/), where M and /spl Xi/ are the decimation and an integer diagonal matrices, respectively, and /spl Nscr/ (/spl Nscr/) is the set of integer vectors in the fundamental parallelpiped of N. Since our proposed system structurally restricts both the paraunitary and linear-phase properties, an unconstrained optimization process can be used to design MD-LPPUFBs. Some design examples are included to show the significance.
Histology, Histochemistry and Scanning Electron Microscopy of Lingual Tonsil of Young Pigs

The present study was conducted on lingual tonsil o f 10 young male pigs of 8-10 months age of local mixed breed for li ght and scanning electron microscopic studies. The lingual tonsil wa s lined by stratified squamous keratinized to non-keratinized epithelium having different strata. This epithelium modified into reticular epithelium especially toward the crypts was associated with lymphoid tissue. Propria submucosa had loose irregular connective tissue, glandular tissue, fatt y tissue and lymphoid aggregations mainly in the form of follicles. These follicles were separated by interfollicular areas having lymphocytes, plasma cells, macrophages, fine blood capillaries and high endothelial venules . The mucous type of glandular acini presented strong reaction for glyco gen, acidic and neutral mucopolysaccharides. The scanning electron microscopy revealed that the surface of the lingual tonsil was having different types of papillae with broader base and pointed tips except a few having b lunt tips. The higher magnification revealed flat epithelial cells and di fferent arrangements of microplicae.
Recent Improvements on ILP-based Clustering for Broadcast News Speaker Diarization

First we propose a reformulation of the Integer Linear Programming (ILP) clustering method we introduced at Odyssey 2012, for broadcast news Speaker Diarization. We included an overall distance filtering which drastically reduce the complexity of the problems to be solved. Then, we present a clustering approach where the problem is globally considered as a connected graph. The search for Star-graph sub-components allows the system to solve almost the whole clustering problem: only 8 of the 28 shows that compose the January 2013 test corpus of the REPERE 2012 French evaluation campaign, on which the experiments were conducted, were processed with the ILP clustering. Compared to the original formulation of the ILP clustering problem, our contribution lead to a reduction of the number of variables in the ILP problem, from 1743 to 53 on average, and a reduction of the number of constraints, from 3449 to 53 on average. The graph content clustering method appears to be an interesting alternative to the current clustering methods, since its results are better than that of the state of the art approaches like GMM-based HAC (15.18% against 16.22% DER).
Post‐transplant lymphoproliferative disorder subtypes correlate with different recurring chromosomal abnormalities

Although cytogenetic analysis advanced the understanding of the pathogenesis of primary non‐Hodgkin lymphoma and led to improved clinical management, there have been no large cytogenetic studies of post‐transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD). We examined the karyotypes of 36 PTLD cases and correlated them with clinical, laboratory, and pathologic findings. The cases included 2 early lesions, 13 polymorphic PTLDs, and 21 monomorphic PTLDs (18 B‐cell and 3 T‐cell proliferations). Cytogenetic abnormalities were identified in 72% of monomorphic B‐cell PTLDs and in all T‐cell PTLDs, but in only 15% of polymorphic PTLDs and in no early lesions. The most frequent clonal abnormalities in monomorphic PTLD were trisomies 9 and/or 11 (5 cases), followed by rearrangements of 8q24.1 (4 cases), 3q27 (2 cases), and 14q32 (2 cases). MYC rearrangement (8q24.1) and T‐cell‐associated chromosomal abnormalities correlated with poor outcome and short survival. PTLD with trisomy 9 and/or 11 developed early after transplant, presenting as Epstein–Barr virus–positive large B‐cell lymphoma with prolonged survival. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Characterization of proliferating cells from newborn mouse cochleae

Loss of hair cells in mammals including human beings causes permanent hearing loss because the cochlea cannot regenerate hair cells spontaneously. Here we show that the newborn mouse cochleae contain sphere-forming cells that have the capacity for proliferation in culture, differentiating to form cells that express hair cell markers. When treated with epidermal growth factor or basic fibroblast growth factor, the number of spheres formed increases. The sphere cells express genes that are indicative of inner ear progenitor cells. After differentiation, some sphere cells grow a hair cell bundle-like structure that expresses hair cell marker myosin VIIA and espin. The sphere-forming cells being capable of differentiating into hair cell-like cells implies the possibility of using these sphere-forming cells for reconstructing the damaged cochlear hair cells.
Identification and Analysis of Escherichia coli Ribonuclease E Dominant-Negative Mutants

The Escherichia coli (E. coli) ribonuclease E protein (RNase E) is implicated in the degradation and processing of a large fraction of RNAs in the cell. To understand RNase E function in greater detail, we developed an efficient selection method for identifying nonfunctional RNase E mutants. A subset of the mutants was found to display a dominant-negative phenotype, interfering with wild-type RNase E function. Unexpectedly, each of these mutants contained a large truncation within the carboxy terminus of RNase E. In contrast, no point mutants that conferred a dominant-negative phenotype were found. We show that a representative dominant-negative mutant can form mixed multimers with RNase E and propose a model to explain how these mutants can block wild-type RNase E function in vivo.
Year : 2002 Detection of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis specific IS 900 insertion sequences in bulk-tank milk samples obtained from different regions throughout

BACKGROUND: Since Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) was isolated from intestinal tissue of a human patient suffering Crohn's disease, a controversial discussion exists whether MAP have a role in the etiology of Crohn's disease or not. Raw milk may be a potential vehicle for the transmission of MAP to human population. In a previous paper, we have demonstrated that MAP are found in raw milk samples obtained from a defined region in Switzerland. The aim of this work is to collect data about the prevalence of MAP specific IS900 insertion sequence in bulk-tank milk samples in different regions of Switzerland. Furthermore, we examined eventual correlation between the presence of MAP and the somatic cell counts, the total colony counts and the presence of Enterobacteriaceae. RESULTS: 273 (19.7%) of the 1384 examined bulk-tank milk samples tested IS900 PCR-positive. The prevalence, however, in the different regions of Switzerland shows significant differences and ranged from 1.7% to 49.2%. Furthermore, there were no statistically significant (p >> 0.05) differences between the somatic cell counts and the total colony counts of PCR-positive and PCR-negative milk samples. Enterobacteriaceae occur as often in IS900 PCR-positive as in PCR-negative milk samples. CONCLUSION: This is the first study, which investigates the prevalence of MAP in bulk-tank milk samples all over Switzerland and infers the herd-level prevalence of MAP infection in dairy herds. The prevalence of 19.7% IS900 PCR-positive bulk-milk samples shows a wide distribution of subclinical MAP-infections in dairy stock in Switzerland. MAP can therefore often be transmitted to humans by raw milk consumption. BioMed Central BMC Microbiology BMC Microbiology 2002, 2 x Research article Detection of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis specific IS900 insertion sequences in bulk-tank milk samples obtained from different regions throughout Switzerland Sabrina Corti and Roger Stephan* Address: Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 270, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland, CH E-mail: Sabrina Corti scorti@gmx.net; Roger Stephan* stephanr@fsafety.unizh. ch *Corresponding author
Analytical synthesis of low-sensitivity voltage-mode odd-nth-order OTA-C elliptic filter structure with the minimum number of components

Though the current-mode odd-nth-order operational transconductance amplifier and capacitor (OTA-C) elliptic filter structure with the minimum number of active and passive components was presented recently, yet none of its counterpart, the voltage-mode ones, have been reported. After a new analytical synthesis method, namely, an innovative algebraic decomposition of a complex nth-order transfer function into n simple and feasible equations, the voltage-mode odd-nth-order OTA-C elliptic filter structure with the minimum number of components is proposed in this paper. The Hspice simulation with 0.35 mum process for a voltage-mode third-order OTA-C elliptic low-pass filter, employing only four OTAs and three grounded capacitors, validates not only precise filtering parameters but low sensitivity and low power consumption performances.
Exploring the Design and Use of Forecasting Groupware Applications with an Augmented Shared Calendar

Changes in work, along with improvements in techniques to statistically model uncertainty, have resulted in a class of groupware tools able to forecast the activities and/or attentional state of their users. This thesis represents an exploration into the design, development, and use of one such system. I describe the design and development of a groupware calendar system called Augur that is augmented with the ability to predict the attendance of its users. Using Bayesian networks, Augur models the uncertain problem of event attendance, drawing inferences based on the attributes of calendar events as well as a history of attendance provided by each user. This system was deployed to an academic workgroup and studied over the course of a semester. To more deeply explore the social implications of Augur and systems like it, I conducted a structured privacy analysis of Augur to examine the vulnerabilities inherent in this type of forecasting groupware system. I present an architecture, user interface, and probabilistic model for Augur. This work also addresses the feasibility of such a system and the challenges faced when deploying it to an academic workgroup. I also report on an exploration of the system's use by individuals, its effects on communication within working relationships, and its effectiveness with respect to the presence of domestic calendars. Finally, I present a set of implications for the workplace social environment with the introduction of Augur. Specifically, I show how the integrity of predictions generated by Augur can have consequences for the privacy of users and their representations through the shared calendar. Overall, this thesis is presented as an early exploration into the potential for a new class of forecasting groupware applications. It offers guidance and lessons learned for both designers and researchers seeking to work in this area. It also presents a complete calendar application as an example for building and studying such systems.
Chave ilustrada para identificação da fauna acarina na cultura da videira do estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil.

O cultivo de videiras e uma pratica antiga e hoje presente em quase todas as regioes do mundo. No Brasil, foi introduzida por colonizadores portugueses em 1532 (PROTAS et al., 2002), e no estado do Rio Grande do Sul, por imigrantes italianos a partir do final do seculo XIX (DIEDRICH, 2006). Atualmente, a vitivinicultura do Estado esta estruturada em quatro polos: Serra Gaucha, Regiao da Campanha, Serra do Sudoeste e Regiao Central (PROTAS & CAMARGO, 2011). A partir da
Arts at the Intersection: Cross-Sector Collaboration and Creative Placemaking in Rapid City, SD

Abstract Small cities and rural communities are undertaking initiatives to create jobs, attract businesses, and entice tourists in efforts to adapt to a “new” economy in which the technology industry is outpacing and replacing manufacturing in providing job opportunities and economic growth. Communities are positioning assets, such as arts and culture, to meet these challenges. Creative placemaking, a popular initiative, employs cross-sector collaboration to develop arts-centered projects for location-specific benefits and can be undertaken in communities of all sizes. Advocates of the arts have promoted the promise for small and medium cities and rural areas. Small cities and rural communities form a diverse and heterogeneous population, but it is important to think about how conditions outside of metropolitan areas differ and shape collaborations and initiatives. This article presents the case of Rapid City, South Dakota, a small, Midwestern city serving a geographically dispersed population. This analysis contributes to the limited body of work examining collaboration in small and medium cities, illustrates the challenges, and offers insights into creative placemaking. Funding and participation emerged as important topics in this case of small city collaboration.