Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Phase II Study of PD-0325901, an Oral MEK Inhibitor, in Previously Treated Patients with Advanced Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of mitogen-activated protein kinase/extracellular signal-related kinase kinase inhibitor PD-0325901 in advanced non–small cell lung cancer patients who had experienced treatment failure after, or were refractory to, standard systemic therapy. Experimental Design: This open-label, phase II study initially evaluated 15 mg PD-0325901 twice daily administered intermittently (3 weeks on/1 week off; schedule A). As this schedule was not well tolerated, a second schedule was introduced as follows: 5 days on/2 days off for 3 weeks, followed by 1 week off (schedule B). The primary end point was objective response. Results: All patients had received prior systemic therapy (median of two regimens, including epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors in 26%). Of 13 patients treated on schedule A, three discontinued due to adverse events (blurred vision, fatigue, and hallucinations, respectively). Twenty-one patients received schedule B. Main toxicities included diarrhea, fatigue, rash, vomiting, nausea, and reversible visual disturbances. Hematologic toxicity consisted mainly of mild-to-moderate anemia, without neutropenia. Chemistry abnormalities were rare. Mean (coefficient of variation) PD-0325901 trough plasma concentrations were 100 ng/mL (52%) and 173 ng/mL (73%) for schedules A and B, respectively, above the minimum target concentration established in preclinical studies (16.5 ng/mL). There were no objective responses. Seven patients had stable disease. Median (95% confidence interval) progression-free survival was 1.8 months (1.5-1.9) and overall survival was 7.8 months (4.5-13.9). Conclusions: PD-0325901 did not meet its primary efficacy end point. Future studies should focus on PD-0325901 schedule, rational combination strategies, and enrichment of patient selection based on mode of action. Clin Cancer Res; 16(8); 2450–7. ©2010 AACR.
The TALP&I2R SMT systems for IWSLT 2008.

This paper gives a description of the statistical machine translation (SMT) systems developed at the TALP Research Center of the UPC (Universitat Politde Catalunya) for our participation in the IWSLT'08 evaluation campaign. We present N gram-based (TALPtuples) and phrase-based (TALPphrases) SMT systems. The paper explains the 2008 systems' architecture and outlines translation schemes we have used, mainly focusing on the new techniques that are challenged to improve speech-to-speech translation quality. The novelties we have introduced are: improved reorder- ing method, linear combination of translation and reordering models and new technique dealing with punctuation marks insertion for a phrase-based SMT system. This year we focus on the Arabic-English, Chinese- Spanish and pivot Chinese-(English)-Spanish translation tasks.
Learning embeddings for speaker clustering based on voice equality

Recent work has shown that convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained in a supervised fashion for speaker identification are able to extract features from spectrograms which can be used for speaker clustering. These features are represented by the activations of a certain hidden layer and are called embeddings. However, previous approaches require plenty of additional speaker data to learn the embedding, and although the clustering results are then on par with more traditional approaches using MFCC features etc., room for improvements stems from the fact that these embeddings are trained with a surrogate task that is rather far away from segregating unknown voices — namely, identifying few specific speakers. We address both problems by training a CNN to extract embeddings that are similar for equal speakers (regardless of their specific identity) using weakly labeled data. We demonstrate our approach on the well-known TIMIT dataset that has often been used for speaker clustering experiments in the past. We exceed the clustering performance of all previous approaches, but require just 100 instead of 590 unrelated speakers to learn an embedding suited for clustering.
BIOLOGICAL IMAGE MOTION PROCESSING : A REVIEW

Motion as a fundamental visual dimension Functional aspects of image motion processing (I) Encoding of the third dimension (2) Time to collision (TTC) (3) Image segmentation (4) Motion as a proprioceptive sense (5) Motion as a stimulus to drive eye movements (6) Motion as required for pattern vision (7) Image motion processing as useful for perceiving real moving objects Temporal integration of velocity signals Higher-order computations on the optical flow field
A Small Sphere and Large Margin Approach for Novelty Detection Using Training Data with Outliers

We present a small sphere and large margin approach for novelty detection problems, where the majority of training data are normal examples. In addition, the training data also contain a small number of abnormal examples or outliers. The basic idea is to construct a hypersphere that contains most of the normal examples, such that the volume of this sphere is as small as possible, while at the same time the margin between the surface of this sphere and the outlier training data is as large as possible. This can result in a closed and tight boundary around the normal data. To build such a sphere, we only need to solve a convex optimization problem that can be efficiently solved with the existing software packages for training nu-support vector machines. Experimental results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Impaired Cardiovascular Structure and Function in Adult Survivors of Severe Acute Malnutrition

Malnutrition below 5 years remains a global health issue. Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) presents in childhood as oedematous (kwashiorkor) or nonoedematous (marasmic) forms, with unknown long-term cardiovascular consequences. We hypothesized that cardiovascular structure and function would be poorer in SAM survivors than unexposed controls. We studied 116 adult SAM survivors, 54 after marasmus, 62 kwashiorkor, and 45 age/sex/body mass index–matched community controls who had standardized anthropometry, blood pressure, echocardiography, and arterial tonometry performed. Left ventricular indices and outflow tract diameter, carotid parameters, and pulse wave velocity were measured, with systemic vascular resistance calculated. All were expressed as SD scores. Mean (SD) age was 28.8±7.8 years (55% men). Adjusting for age, sex, height, and weight, SAM survivors had mean (SE) reductions for left ventricular outflow tract diameter of 0.67 (0.16; P<0.001), stroke volume 0.44 (0.17; P=0.009), cardiac output 0.5 (0.16; P=0.001), and pulse wave velocity 0.32 (0.15; P=0.03) compared with controls but higher diastolic blood pressures (by 4.3; 1.2–7.3 mm Hg; P=0.007). Systemic vascular resistance was higher in marasmus and kwashiorkor survivors (30.2 [1.2] and 30.8 [1.1], respectively) than controls 25.3 (0.8), overall difference 5.5 (95% confidence interval, 2.8–8.4 mm Hg min/L; P<0.0001). No evidence of large vessel or cardiac remodeling was found, except closer relationships between these indices in former marasmic survivors. Other parameters did not differ between SAM survivor groups. We conclude that adult SAM survivors had smaller outflow tracts and cardiac output when compared with controls, yet markedly elevated peripheral resistance. Malnutrition survivors are thus likely to develop excess hypertension in later life, especially when exposed to obesity.
Custom PXIe-567X-Based SAW RFID Interrogation Signal Generator

This paper presents a fully reconfigurable and reliable PXIe-567X software-defined interrogation signal generator for surface acoustic wave (SAW)-based passive radio frequency identification (RFID). Contrary to most commercial SAW RFID readers that operate only at a unique predefined frequency, the proposed vector signal generator is aimed to operate at any frequency defined by the user, from 85 MHz to 6.6 GHz, including the 902-928 MHz and 2.45-GHz industrial scientific and medical bands. The PXIe-567X-based signal generator can accurately generate not only conventional ON-OFF keying (OOK)-modulated or pulsed binary phase shift keying (BPSK)-modulated SAW RFID interrogation signals, but also completely user-defined interrogation signals. A custom LabVIEW user interface that allows to control the carrier frequency, the power, and the waveform of the interrogation signal has been designed. The operator can switch between custom waveforms without resetting and reprogramming the whole system. The proposed RFID request signal generator has been validated using a complete measurement setup. Time-domain and frequency-domain validation tests of OOK modulated and wideband pulsed BPSK-modulated signal generation have been conducted at 170, 340, 915 MHz and 2.45 GHz. Very accurate results have been obtained. The PXIe-567X-based RFID interrogator has been tested with a fabricated 3-b SAW RFID tag. The operability of the entire SAW RFID system has been demonstrated.
Twin photonic nanojets generated from coherent illumination of microscale sphere and cylinder

Photonic nanojets, highly focused beams of light created by planar illumination of a microsphere, have been shown to produce narrow subwavelength beams over distances of several wavelengths in the near field. In this work, we investigate the generation of twin photonic nanojets through the illumination of a microsphere or cylinder from two coherent sources with relative phase shift. Under these conditions, symmetric twin nanojets separated by an intensity null can be generated. Compared to a photonic nanojet, the twin nanojets can achieve an even smaller subwavelength beam, and have the added advantage of having more complex intensity profiles that can be controlled by multiple parameters. Using both finite-difference time-domain and Mie theory models, the width, length, and intensity enhancement factor of the nanojet geometry are found to be functions of the phase, angle offsets, and particle geometry. Such twin photonic nanojets can find applications in optical trapping, manipulation, nanolithography, and enhancement of nonlinear optical properties.
Bioactivity-guided isolation of cytotoxic constituents from three medicinal plants

Abstract Context: The ethanol extracts and their fractions of three Indian medicinal plants, Ervatamia coronaria (Jacq.) Stapf, (Apocynaceae), Mimosa pudica L. (Mimosaceae) and Caesalpinia bonduc (L.) Roxb. (Caesalpiniaceae) were tested for their cytotoxic activity in the brine shrimp lethality (BSL) bioassay and in various cancer cell lines. The plants were selected based on their traditional use in the treatment of cancer/tumors. Objectives: To investigate the in vitro cytotoxicity of Ervatamia coronaria, Mimosa pudica and Caesalpinia bonduc. Materials and methods: Ethanolic extracts and their fractions of E. coronaria, M. pudica and C. bonduc were subjected to cytotoxicity studies using BSL bioassay method with concentrations of 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 µg/ml. The alkaloid fraction of E. coronaria with significant cytotoxicity in BSL bioassay was subjected to in vitro cytotoxicity studies with HT-29, A-549, HepG-2, MCF-7 and L-6 cell lines at concentrations of 12.5, 25, 50, 100 and 200 µg/ml and a DNA fragmentation study using the HT-29 cell line. Results: The alkaloid fractions of E. coronaria and M. pudica showed significant cytotoxicity with LC50 values of 65.83 and 85.10 µg/ml in the BSL bioassay, respectively. The purified alkaloid fraction of E. coronaria exhibited highest cytotoxicity in HT-29, A-549 and MCF-7 cell lines with IC50 values of 32.5, 47.5 and 72.5 µg/ml, respectively, and induced DNA fragmentation in the HT-29 cell line at a concentration of 65 µg/ml. Conclusion: The alkaloid fraction of E. coronaria exhibited significant cytotoxicity. Alkaloids such as ervatamine, apparicine and coronaridine that were earlier reported may be responsible for this activity.
Continuous Multimodal Emotion Prediction Based on Long Short Term Memory Recurrent Neural Network

The continuous dimensional emotion can depict subtlety and complexity of emotional change, which is an inherently challenging problem with growing attention. This paper presents our automatic prediction of dimensional emotional state for Audio-Visual Emotion Challenge (AVEC 2017), which uses multi-features and fusion across all available modalities. Besides the baseline features provided by the organizers, we also extract other acoustic audio feature sets, appearance features and deep visual features as complementary features. Each type of feature is trained using Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neutral Network (LSTM-RNN) for every dimensional emotion prediction separately considering annotation delay and temporal pooling. To overcome overfitting problem, robust models are chosen carefully for individual model. Finally, multimodal emotion fusion is achieved by utilizing Support Vector Regression (SVR) with the estimates from different feature sets in decision level fusion. The experimental results indicate that our extracted features are beneficial to performance improvement and our system design achieves very promising results with Concordant Correlation Coefficient (CCC), which outperform the baseline system on the testing set for arousal of 0.599 vs 0.375 (baseline) and for valence of 0.721 vs 0.466 and for liking 0.295 vs 0.246.
STUDIES ON THE VIRULENCE OF TUBERCLE BACILLI

Tubercle bacilli were grown in the presence of different concentrations of tween 80, ranging from 0.05 to 2.1 per cent. Equal numbers of viable bacteria from these cultures were compared in infection experiments in the mouse. The average survival time of the mice was used as a criterion for the virulence of the bacilli. High tween concentrations in the culture medium caused a reduction of the bacterial virulence. The reduction was slight in bacterial suspensions from cultures with tween 80 ranging from 0.05 to 1.0 per cent, but considerable in cultures with 2.1 per cent tween. Bacteria grown in the presence of 2.1 per cent tween gave rise to the same number of colonies, in vitro, as bacteria grown in ordinary media. Their oxygen uptake was increased as compared with that of bacilli grown in media containing less tween. Virulent bacteria grown in the presence of high amounts of tween 80 decolorized methylene blue in a test in which organisms from the same virulent strain but cultured without tween, or with only small proportions of the detergent in the medium, did not reduce the dye. A positive methylene blue test is typical of non-virulent tubercle bacilli and of saprophytic mycobacteria. Essentially the same changes occurred when virulent tubercle bacilli were grown in the presence of 0.5 µg. /ml. of para-formacetanilide thiosemicarbazone (TBI). This small amount of the substance was not sufficient to prevent the growth of bacteria, or to reduce the number of viable cells in a culture, but it reduced the virulence of the bacteria considerably and rendered them capable of decolorizing methylene blue. Cord factor, a lipid constituent of virulent bacteria which is toxic for mice, was shown to be present in filtrates from cultures of virulent bacteria when the media contained 2 per cent tween 80, but no such material could be recovered from culture filtrates containing the usual 0.05 per cent tween. On the other hand, no toxic material could be extracted from bacteria grown in the presence of 0.5 µg. /ml. TBI.
Should plain X-rays be routinely performed after blunt knee trauma? A prospective analysis.

BACKGROUND We tested the hypothesis that it was possible to decrease the number of performed x-rays after a knee trauma without delayed fracture diagnosis by using the Ottawa knee rules. METHODS Patients had routine x-rays of the injured knee during the first stage of the study and selective x-rays during the second stage. All patients were followed up to 6 months after the trauma. RESULTS 138 patients were included in the first stage; 57 had negative Ottawa criteria: no fracture was observed; following the Ottawa rules, 41% of the x-rays could have been avoided. 178 patients were included in the second stage; 63 patients had negative Ottawa criteria: no fracture was diagnosed during the whole follow-up; 35% of the x-rays have been avoided. CONCLUSIONS Ottawa rules allowed decreasing the number of x-rays performed after a knee trauma by 35% with a sensitivity for a knee fracture detection of 100%.
Classifying Ephemeral vs Evergreen Content on the Web

ONE of the strengths of the internet is the proliferation of content available on virtually any topic imaginable. The challenge today has become sorting through this wealth of content to locate the information of greatest interest to each user. Many sites today implement recommender engines based on expressed and learned user preferences to direct us ers towards new content that the engine believes they will most enjoy. The relevance of such content can either be highly topical and short-lived (such as last night’s sports scores ) or enduring and long-lived (such as an introductory tutorial t o machine learning algorithms). The former content is termed “ephemeral”, while the latter is called “evergreen”. An interesting challenge is to attempt to predict a priori if a new piece of content will be in the former or latter category. Not only would it be useful for recommenders attempting to classify different news stories based on type, this informa tion could be used for other applications also, such as for archiv al projects to determine what web content merits inclusion, or for content sites interested in capacity planning for hosti ng different pages based on expected longevity.
Misselling through agents

This paper analyzes the implications of the inherent conflict between two tasks performed by direct marketing agents: prospecting for customers and advising on the product's suitability for the specific needs of customers. When structuring sales-force compensation, firms trade off the expected losses from misselling unsuitable products with the agency costs of providing marketing incentives. We characterize how the equilibrium amount of misselling (and thus the scope of policy intervention) depends on features of the agency problem including: the internal organization of a firm's sales process, the transparency of its commission structure, and the steepness of its agents' sales incentives.
Reliability and validity of the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale on an Iranian sample.

BACKGROUND The Bipolar Depression Rating Scale is an instrument to measure depression severity in patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This study has reevaluated the psychometric values of the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale through assessing an Iranian sample of patients with bipolar depression. METHODS A total of 60 patients (36 males and 24 females) with bipolar depression referred to four medical centers in Tehran, Iran were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV axis I Disorders, Young Mania Rating Scale, center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale. Internal consistency and inter-rater reliability of the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale, and Pearson's correlation coefficient between the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale and Young Mania Rating Scale/Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale were calculated. RESULTS The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.81. The Pearson's correlation coefficients of the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale with the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale and Young Mania Rating Scale were 0.73 and -0.82, respectively. The correlation coefficients between the two raters for the total score of the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale according to the Pearson's correlation and intraclass correlation tests were 0.83 and 0.89, respectively. CONCLUSION The Bipolar Depression Rating Scale is a reliable and valid instrument to use in studies on Iranian clinical patients with bipolar depression.
Diuretic strategies in patients with acute decompensated heart failure.

BACKGROUND Loop diuretics are an essential component of therapy for patients with acute decompensated heart failure, but there are few prospective data to guide their use. METHODS In a prospective, double-blind, randomized trial, we assigned 308 patients with acute decompensated heart failure to receive furosemide administered intravenously by means of either a bolus every 12 hours or continuous infusion and at either a low dose (equivalent to the patient's previous oral dose) or a high dose (2.5 times the previous oral dose). The protocol allowed specified dose adjustments after 48 hours. The coprimary end points were patients' global assessment of symptoms, quantified as the area under the curve (AUC) of the score on a visual-analogue scale over the course of 72 hours, and the change in the serum creatinine level from baseline to 72 hours. RESULTS In the comparison of bolus with continuous infusion, there was no significant difference in patients' global assessment of symptoms (mean AUC, 4236±1440 and 4373±1404, respectively; P=0.47) or in the mean change in the creatinine level (0.05±0.3 mg per deciliter [4.4±26.5 μmol per liter] and 0.07±0.3 mg per deciliter [6.2±26.5 μmol per liter], respectively; P=0.45). In the comparison of the high-dose strategy with the low-dose strategy, there was a nonsignificant trend toward greater improvement in patients' global assessment of symptoms in the high-dose group (mean AUC, 4430±1401 vs. 4171±1436; P=0.06). There was no significant difference between these groups in the mean change in the creatinine level (0.08±0.3 mg per deciliter [7.1±26.5 μmol per liter] with the high-dose strategy and 0.04±0.3 mg per deciliter [3.5±26.5 μmol per liter] with the low-dose strategy, P=0.21). The high-dose strategy was associated with greater diuresis and more favorable outcomes in some secondary measures but also with transient worsening of renal function. CONCLUSIONS Among patients with acute decompensated heart failure, there were no significant differences in patients' global assessment of symptoms or in the change in renal function when diuretic therapy was administered by bolus as compared with continuous infusion or at a high dose as compared with a low dose. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00577135.).
Threshold-based system for noise detection in multilead ECG recordings

This paper presents a system for detection of the most common noise types seen on the electrocardiogram (ECG) in order to evaluate whether an episode from 12-lead ECG is reliable for diagnosis. It implements criteria for estimation of the noise corruption level in specific frequency bands, aiming to identify the main sources of ECG quality disruption, such as missing signal or limited dynamics of the QRS components above 4 Hz; presence of high amplitude and steep artifacts seen above 1 Hz; baseline drift estimated at frequencies below 1 Hz; power–line interference in a band ±2 Hz around its central frequency; high-frequency and electromyographic noises above 20 Hz. All noise tests are designed to process the ECG series in the time domain, including 13 adjustable thresholds for amplitude and slope criteria which are evaluated in adjustable time intervals, as well as number of leads. The system allows flexible extension toward application-specific requirements for the noise levels in acceptable quality ECGs. Training of different thresholds’ settings to determine different positive noise detection rates is performed with the annotated set of 1000 ECGs from the PhysioNet database created for the Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2011. Two implementations are highlighted on the receiver operating characteristic (area 0.968) to fit to different applications. The implementation with high sensitivity (Se = 98.7%, Sp = 80.9%) appears as a reliable alarm when there are any incidental problems with the ECG acquisition, while the implementation with high specificity (Sp = 97.8%, Se = 81.8%) is less susceptible to transient problems but rather validates noisy ECGs with acceptable quality during a small portion of the recording.