Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Faecal calprotectin: a marker of inflammation throughout the intestinal tract

Objective To assess the potential of measuring the calcium-binding protein calprotectin in faeces as a method of screening for alimentary inflammation and neoplasia. Setting Hospital day services unit for endoscopy and faecal analysis in the clinical biochemistry department. Participants Consented patients attending for routine endoscopy were requested to provide faeces. Seventeen of the initial 30 patients provided faeces before and 1 week after endoscopy. After this, 116 patients for planned endoscopy provided faeces before endoscopy. The group comprised 43 patients with upper-gastrointestinal lesions, seven patients with inflammatory bowel disease, seven patients with irritable bowel syndrome, 31 patients with colonic disorders, and 28 normal people. A final 18 patients with known inflammatory bowel disease (seven patients), gastric carcinoma (one patient), colorectal cancer (eight patients) and colorectal adenoma (two patients) had faeces analysed. Method Faeces were analysed by the Nycotest PhiCal enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (Nycomed, Oslo, Norway), and the final 18 patients were analysed by the newer version marketed as Calprest. Results No definite differences between pre- and post-endoscopy calprotectin were found, but it was considered preferable in the subsequent patients to analyse pre-endoscopy faeces. Upper-gastrointestinal disorders showed little difference in calprotectin levels, Barrett's oesophagus (median 6.8 mg/l), gastric ulcer (median 6.5 mg/l) or gastritis/duodenitis (median 5.2 mg/l), but these levels were all higher than the median calprotectin level of normal subjects (4.5 mg/l). The oesophageal and gastric carcinoma median was elevated significantly at 30 mg/l. Inflammatory bowel disease was also associated with marked elevation (Crohn's disease, 31.2 mg/l; ulcerative colitis, 116.2 mg/l). Colorectal polyps (median 3.7 mg/l) and adenoma (median 3.8 mg/l) showed no elevated levels in contrast to colorectal carcinoma (median 53.4 mg/l). The elevated calprotectin in inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal carcinoma combined gave a sensitivity of 81.8% and a specificity of 73.2%. Conclusions Calprotectin levels are elevated in inflammation and cancer but are not helpful in differentiating between these disorders. In our series, calprotectin was not elevated in colonic polyps or adenomata. Calprotectin could be helpful as a screening method in a general gastroenterology population for inflammatory bowel disease and those with carcinoma, as well as assessing and monitoring disease activity in inflammatory bowel disease.
Irinotecan and Oxaliplatin Might Provide Equal Benefit as Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Patients with Resectable Synchronous Colon Cancer and Liver-confined Metastases: A Nationwide Database Study.

BACKGROUND Although irinotecan and oxaliplatin are both standard treatments for advanced colon cancer, it remains unknown whether either is effective for patients with resectable synchronous colon cancer and liver-confined metastasis (SCCLM) after curative surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS A population-based cohort of patients diagnosed with de novo SCCLM between 2004 and 2009 was established by searching the database of the Taiwan Cancer Registry and the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan. Patients who underwent curative surgery as their first therapy followed by chemotherapy doublets were classified into the irinotecan group or oxaliplatin group accordingly. Patients who received radiotherapy or did not receive chemotherapy doublets were excluded. RESULTS We included 6,533 patients with de novo stage IV colon cancer. Three hundred and nine of them received chemotherapy doublets after surgery; 77 patients received irinotecan and 232 patients received oxaliplatin as adjuvant chemotherapy. The patients in both groups exhibited similar overall survival (median: not reached vs. 40.8 months, p=0.151) and time to the next line of treatment (median: 16.5 vs. 14.3 months, p=0.349) in both univariate and multivariate analyses. Additionally, patients with resectable SCCLM had significantly shorter median overall survival than patients with stage III colon cancer who underwent curative surgery and subsequent adjuvant chemotherapy, but longer median overall survival than patients with de novo stage IV colon cancer who underwent surgery only at the primary site followed by standard systemic chemotherapy (p<0.001). CONCLUSION Irinotecan and oxaliplatin exhibited similar efficacy in patients who underwent curative surgery for resectable SCCLM.
High gain Yagi-Uda UHF RFID tag antennas

In this paper, 5-elements Yagi-Uda type UHF tag antennas, resonated at 915MHz, are designed to increase the gain and FBR (front-back-ratio) of tag antennas and extend the reading range. The designs have better FBR than a conventional Yagi-Uda tag antenna designs.
The impact of early life immune challenge on behavior and microglia during postnatal development

Sexual dichotomy exists in the development, presentation, and course of many neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety. Anxiety disorders are one of the earliest psychiatric illnesses to manifest and a role for immune system programming of the developing CNS has emerged in relation to anxiety. Adult rodents neonatally exposed to an immune challenge exhibit increased anxiety-related behaviors. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of postnatal immune challenge on behavior and microglia during the postnatal period and in adulthood. Mice were administered lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 0.05mg/kg, i.p.) or saline on postnatal days (P) three and five. Anxiety-related behavior was assessed during early development on P15 and P21, and re-assessed in adulthood at 10 and 12 weeks. Results reveal sex-specificity in the temporal emergence and phenotypic profile of behaviors displayed by LPS-treated mice. Male LPS-treated mice exhibited reduced exploratory in early development (P15 and P21) that persisted into adulthood. Female LPS-mice exhibited increased anxiety-like behaviors in the EPM in adulthood. These results demonstrate a role for interactions between sex and the immune system in shaping the developmental trajectory of exploratory and anxiety-like behaviors.
Structured multimedia document classification

We propose a new statistical model for the classification of structured documents and consider its use for multimedia document classification. Its main originality is its ability to simultaneously take into account the structural and the content information present in a structured document, and also to cope with different types of content (text, image, etc). We present experiments on the classification of multilingual pornographic HTML pages using text and image data. The system accurately classifies porn sites from 8 European languages. This corpus has been developed by EADS company in the context of a large Web site filtering application.
Prediction of coronary events in a low incidence population. Assessing accuracy of the CUORE Cohort Study prediction equation.

BACKGROUND The aims of this paper are to derive a 10-year coronary risk predictive equation for adult Italian men, and to assess its accuracy in comparison with the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) and PROCAM study equations. METHODS The CUORE study is a prospective fixed-cohort study. Eleven cohorts, from the north and the centre-south of Italy, had been investigated at baseline between 1982 and 1996, adopting MONICA methods to measure risk factors. Among this sample of 6865 men, aged 35-69 years and free of coronary heart disease (CHD) at baseline, 312 first fatal and non-fatal major coronary events occurred in 9.1 years median follow-up. Calibration, as the difference between 10-year predicted and actual risk, and discrimination, as the ability of the risk functions to separate high-risk from low-risk subjects, have been assessed to compare accuracy of the FHS, the PROCAM, and the CUORE study equations. RESULTS The best CUORE equation includes age, total cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, cigarette smoking, HDL-cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, hypertension drug treatment, and family history of CHD (area under the ROC curve = 0.75). The uncalibrated estimates of the 10-year risk in this CUORE follow-up data were 0.093 and 0.109 higher (P < 0.05) from the Framingham and PROCAM risk scores, respectively, than the Kaplan-Meier estimate for CUORE, indicating risk overestimates for both equations. Standard recalibration techniques improved accuracy of the FHS equation only. PROCAM overestimates were prominent in the higher risk deciles. With an alternative method for recalibration better risk estimates were obtained, but a cohort study was needed to obtain a properly calibrated risk equation. CONCLUSIONS The CUORE Project predictive equation showed better accuracy of the FHS and PROCAM equations, overcoming frequently reported risk overestimates. The CUORE equation may be adopted to identify men with high coronary risk in Italy.
Relations Between Secrets: Two Formal Analyses of the Yahalom Protocol

The Yahalom protocol is one of those analyzed by Burrows et al. [5]. Based upon their analysis, they have proposed modifications to make the protocol easier to understand and to analyze. Both versions of Yahalom have now been analyzed using Isabelle/HOL. Modified Yahalom satisfies strong security goals, and the original version is adequate. The mathematical reasoning behind these machine proofs is presented informally. An Appendix gives extracts from a formal proof. Yahalom presents special difficulties because the compromise of one session key compromises other secrets. The proofs show that the resulting losses are limited. They rely on a new proof technique, which involves reasoning about the relationship between keys and the secrets encrypted by them. This technique is applicable to other difficult protocols, such as Kerberos IV [2]. The new proofs do not rely on a belief logic. They use a fundamentally different formal model: the inductive method. They confirm the BAN analysis and the advantages of the proposed modifications. The new proof methods detect more flaws than BAN and analyze protocols in finer detail, while remaining broadly consistent with the BAN principles. In particular, the proofs confirm the explicitness principle of Abadi and Needham [1]. The proofs also suggest that any realistic model of security must admit that secrets can become compromised over time.
Rasagiline improves quality of life in patients with early Parkinson's disease

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of rasagiline as monotherapy on quality of life (QOL) in patients with early Parkinson's disease (PD). Rasagiline, a potent, second‐generation, irreversible, selective monoamine oxidase B inhibitor improves PD symptoms in patients with early PD. Patients with early untreated PD were randomly assigned to once‐daily rasagiline 1 mg/day, rasagiline 2 mg/day, or placebo in a 6‐month, double‐blind trial (n = 404). At the end of 6 months, patients entered the preplanned, active‐treatment phase in which those receiving 1 mg/day and 2 mg/day of rasagiline continued on their previously assigned dosages and those receiving placebo switched to rasagiline 2 mg/day, while maintaining blinding to treatment assignments. QOL was measured with the Parkinson's Disease Quality of Life questionnaire (PDQUALIF) at 0, 14, 26, and 52 weeks after randomization. Analysis of the change in PDQUALIF scores from baseline to 6 months showed adjusted treatment effects (with 95% confidence interval) favoring rasagiline over placebo of −2.91 units (−5.19, −0.64, P = 0.01) for the 1 mg/day group and −2.74 units (−5.02, −0.45, P = 0.02) for the 2 mg/day. Subscore analysis attributed most of this benefit to the self‐image/sexuality domain. At 12 months (n = 266), with all groups receiving rasagiline for at least 6 months, no significant differences in PDQUALIF scores were seen between groups. Rasagiline improved QOL compared with placebo. This QOL improvement appears to be accounted for primarily by the symptomatic benefit of rasagiline. © 2006 Movement Disorder Society
INF-UFRGS-OPINION-MINING at SemEval-2016 Task 6: Automatic Generation of a Training Corpus for Unsupervised Identification of Stance in Tweets

This paper describe a weakly supervised so-lution for detecting stance in tweets, submitted to the SemEval 2016 Stance Task. Our approach is based on the premise that stance can be exposed as positive or negative opinions, although not necessarily about the stance target itself. Our system receives as input n-grams representing opinion targets and common terms used to denote stance (e.g. hash-tags), and use these features, together with the sentiment detection solutions, to automatically compose a large training corpus. Then, it applies a supervised learning algorithm to develop a stance prediction model.
Unsupervised training of detection threshold for polyphonic musical note tracking based on event periodicity

A common approach to the detection of simultaneous musical notes in an acoustic recording involves defining a function that yields activation levels for each candidate musical note over time. These levels tend to be high when the note is active and low when it is not. Therefore, by applying a simple threshold decision process, it is possible to decide whether each note is active or not at a given time. Such a threshold, in general, is hard to set and has no physical meaning. In this paper, it is shown that the rhythmic characteristic of the musical signal may be used to obtain a suitable threshold. The proposed method for obtaining the threshold is shown to have a greater generalization capability over different databases.
Steganalysis of JPEG images using rich models

In this paper, we propose a rich model of DCT coefficients in a JPEG file for the purpose of detecting steganographic embedding changes. The model is built systematically as a union of smaller submodels formed as joint distributions of DCT coefficients from their frequency and spatial neighborhoods covering a wide range of statistical dependencies. Due to its high dimensionality, we combine the rich model with ensemble classifiers and construct detectors for six modern JPEG domain steganographic schemes: nsF5, model-based steganography, YASS, and schemes that use side information at the embedder in the form of the uncompressed image: MME, BCH, and BCHopt. The resulting performance is contrasted with previously proposed feature sets of both low and high dimensionality. We also investigate the performance of individual submodels when grouped by their type as well as the effect of Cartesian calibration. The proposed rich model delivers superior performance across all tested algorithms and payloads.
A Semi-parametric Bayesian Framework for Performance Analysis of Call Centers

Telephone call centers have become an integral part of todays economy. One of the most widely used approaches in practice to assess a call center’s performance is the Erlang-A model, whose popularity stems from its analytical tractability. In particular, typical performance measures such as mean customer waiting time and the probability of customer waiting can be calculated explicitly in closed-form. However, recent empirical studies show that the Erlang-A model may be signicantly o the chart. In this paper, we build a semi-parametric framework to assess the performance of a call center, which combines statistical learning techniques with the domain knowledge from the existing queueing theory. We also develop a Bayesian inference approach, which utilizes both \input data" (i.e. inter-arrival times, service times) and \output data" (observed performances). Empirical results show that our approach signicantly reduces the error in performance assessment while retaining exibility and analytical tractability.
In-network aggregation techniques for wireless sensor networks: a survey

In this article we provide a comprehensive review of the existing literature on techniques and protocols for in-network aggregation in wireless sensor networks. We first define suitable criteria to classify existing solutions, and then describe them by separately addressing the different layers of the protocol stack while highlighting the role of a cross-layer design approach, which is likely to be needed for optimal performance. Throughout the article we identify and discuss open issues, and propose directions for future research in the area
Numerical simulation of temperature-induced structural strain for a long-span suspension bridge

Temperature effect is one of the most significant and negative effects on bridges, even worse for long-span bridges. In this study, numerical method for temperature-induced structural strains analysis based on a long-span suspension bridge is investigated. The finite element (FE) models for transient thermal analysis and structural analysis of the long-span suspension bridge are developed, respectively. The variations and distributions of structural temperatures are calculated by applying the thermal boundary conditions on the thermal FE models. Then, structural temperatures are loaded on the structural FE models for structural analysis to obtain the structural strains. The temperature-induced strains of box girder, main cables and towers of the suspension bridge are calculated and analyzed. The results indicated that the temperature effects on the main components of suspension bridge are significant. The structural temperature variations exactly explicate the changes of environmental conditions. The strains of temperature effects not only caused by temperatures of itself, but also the impact of other components. This numerical method can conveniently and effectively calculate the structural temperatures and temperature-induced strains of suspension bridge.
Dynamic Pricing under a Logit Choice Model

We consider a stylized dynamic pricing model in which a monopolist prices a product to a sequence of customers, who independently make purchasing decisions based on the price oered according to a logit choice model. The parameters of the logit model are unknown to the seller, whose objective is to determine a pricing policy that minimizes the regret, which is the expected dierence between the seller’s revenue and the revenue of a clairvoyant seller who knows the values of the parameters in advance. When there is a single unknown parameter, we show that the T -period regret is (log T ), by establishing an (log T ) lower bound on the regret under an arbitrary policy, and presenting a pricing policy based on maximum likelihood estimates that achieves a matching upper bound. For the case of two unknown parameters, we prove that the optimal regret is ( p T ). Numerical experiments show that our policies perform well against several competing strategies.
HDAC3 But not HDAC2 Mediates Visual Experience-Dependent Radial Glia Proliferation in the Developing Xenopus Tectum

Radial glial cells (RGs) are one of the important progenitor cells that can differentiate into neurons or glia to form functional neural circuits in the developing central nervous system (CNS). Histone deacetylases (HDACs) has been associated with visual activity dependent changes in BrdU-positive progenitor cells in the developing brain. We previously have shown that HDAC1 is involved in the experience-dependent proliferation of RGs. However, it is less clear whether two other members of class I HDACs, HDAC2 and HDAC3, are involved in the regulation of radial glia proliferation. Here, we reported that HDAC2 and HDAC3 expression were developmentally regulated in tectal cells, especially in the ventricular layer of the BLBP-positive RGs. Pharmacological blockade using an inhibitor of class I HDACs, MS-275, decreased the number of BrdU-positive dividing progenitor cells. Specific knockdown of HDAC3 but not HDAC2 decreased the number of BrdU- and BLBP-labeled cells, suggesting that the proliferation of radial glia was selectively mediated by HDAC3. Visual deprivation induced selective augmentation of histone H4 acetylation at lysine 16 in BLBP-positive cells. Furthermore, the visual deprivation-induced increase in BrdU-positive cells was partially blocked by HDAC3 downregulation but not by HDAC2 knockdown at stage 49 tadpoles. These data revealed a specific role of HDAC3 in experience-dependent radial glia proliferation during the development of Xenopus tectum.
ABC Transporters and Azole Susceptibility in Laboratory Strains of the Wheat Pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola

ABSTRACT Laboratory strains of Mycosphaerella graminicola with decreased susceptibilities to the azole antifungal agent cyproconazole showed a multidrug resistance phenotype by exhibiting cross-resistance to an unrelated chemical, cycloheximide or rhodamine 6G, or both. Decreased azole susceptibility was found to be associated with either decreased or increased levels of accumulation of cyproconazole. No specific relationship could be observed between azole susceptibility and the expression of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter genes MgAtr1 to MgAtr5 and the sterol P450 14α-demethylase gene, CYP51. ABC transporter MgAtr1 was identified as a determinant in azole susceptibility since heterologous expression of the protein reduced the azole susceptibility of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and disruption of MgAtr1 in one specific M. graminicola laboratory strain with constitutive MgAtr1 overexpression restored the level of susceptibility to cyproconazole to wild-type levels. However, the level of accumulation in the mutant with an MgAtr1 disruption did not revert to the wild-type level. We propose that variations in azole susceptibility in laboratory strains of M. graminicola are mediated by multiple mechanisms.
Density estimation for selecting leaders and mantaining archive in MOPSO

Leader selection and archive maintenance are the two key issues, which have an important impact on the performance of the obtained approximate Pareto front, to be tackled when extending Single-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization to Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO). In this paper, a new method of density estimation is proposed for selecting leaders and maintaining archive in MOPSO. The density of a nondominated solution in archive is calculated according to the Parallel Cell Distance after the archive is mapped from Cartesian Coordinate System into Parallel Cell Coordinate System. A new MOPSO is proposed based on this method of density estimation for selecting leaders and maintaining archive to improve the performance of convergence and diversity. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is significantly superior to the five chosen state-of-the-art MOPSOs on 12 test problems in term of hypervolume performance indicator.
Automatic calibration of laser range finder positions for pedestrian tracking based on social group detections

Laser range finders (LRF’s) are non-invasive sensors which can be used for high-precision and anonymous tracking of pedestrians in social environments. Such sensor networks can be used in robotics to assist in navigation and human–robot interaction. Typically, multiple LRF’s are used together for such tasks, and the relative positions of these sensors must be precisely calibrated. We propose a technique for estimating relative LRF positions using observations of social groups in the pedestrian flow as keypoint features for determining coarse estimates of relative sensor offsets. The most likely offset is estimated using a generalized Hough transform and used to identify sets of possible shared observations of individual pedestrians between pairs of sensors. Outliers are rejected using the RANSAC technique, and the resulting shared observations from each sensor pair are combined into a constraint matrix for the sensor network, which is solved using least-squares minimization. Results show calibration accuracy of sensor positions within 34 mm and 0.51°, and an analysis of pedestrian data collected from ubiquitous networks in three public and commercial spaces shows that the proposed calibration technique enables pedestrian tracking within 11 cm accuracy. Graphical Abstract