Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Small calcified lesions suggestive of neurocysticercosis are associated with mesial temporal sclerosis.

UNLABELLED Recent studies have suggested a possible relationship between temporal lobe epilepsy with mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) and neurocysticercosis (NC). We performed a case-control study to evaluate the association of NC and MTS. METHOD We randomly selected patients with different epilepsy types, including: MTS, primary generalized epilepsy (PGE) and focal symptomatic epilepsy (FSE). Patients underwent a structured interview, followed by head computed tomography (CT). A neuroradiologist evaluated the scan for presence of calcified lesions suggestive of NC. CT results were matched with patients' data. RESULTS More patients in the MTS group displayed calcified lesions suggestive of NC than patients in the other groups (p=0.002). On multivariate analysis, MTS was found to be an independent predictor of one or more calcified NC lesions (p=0.033). CONCLUSION After controlling for confounding factors, we found an independent association between NC calcified lesions and MTS.
Survey of context information fusion for ubiquitous Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems

Abstract Internet-of-Things (IoT) is the latest buzzword, havings its origins in the erstwhile Sensor Networks. Sensor Networks produce a large amount of data. According to the needs this data requires to be processed, delivered and accessed. This processed data when made available with the physical device location, user preferences, time constraints; generically called as context-awareness; is widely referred to as the core function for ubiquitous systems. To our best knowledge there is lack of analysis of context information fusion for ubiquitous sensor networks. Adopting appropriate information fusion techniques can help in screening noisy measurements, control data in the network and take necessary inferences that can help in contextual computing. In this paper we try and explore different context information fusion techniques by comparing a large number of solutions, their methods, architectures and models. All the surveyed techniques can be adapted to the IoT framework.
Missing Tag Identification in Blocker-Enabled RFID Systems

In RFID systems, tags may blindly respond to any readers authorized or not, leading to privacy leakage. A feasible solution to this issue is to deploy blocker tags that emulate and behave like the genuine tags. With the blocker tags, there is always a virtual tag produced by the blocker tag that responds to the reader when the genuine tag to be protected replies, leading to irreconcilable collisions and thus preventing privacy-leakage. In this paper, we take the fresh attempt to study the problem of missing tag identification in blocker- enabled RFID systems. Unlike traditional missing tag identification, the reader in our problem will always get the responses from blocker tags even the genuine tags are lost, which makes the existing solutions unavailable. To address this problem, we propose a Group-based Missing Tag Identification (GMTI) protocol that first uses the grouping technology to divides the entire tag set into three subsets and later separately deals with each of them in different ways. The final result is that GMTI is able to identify any missing tags in a time-efficient, privacy-protected, and complete way.
Single Multiscale-Symbol Error Correction Codes for Multiscale Storage Systems

This manuscript proposes three classes of codes for error correction in a storage system in which the memory cells do not have the same number of levels, i.e., a multiscale storage. The proposed codes are single multiscale-symbol error correction (SMSEC) codes and are capable of correcting any errors occurring on a single memory cell, namely a column-deleted SMSEC code, an element-compacted SMSEC code and a product SMSEC code. In the proposed codes, the codewords are divided into two partitions, the elements on the first partition are over GF(2b1), while those on the remaining partition are over GF(2b2). This paper also gives guidelines for selection among the three SMSEC codes to meet the desired hardware overhead in the parallel decoder for realistic parameters of the partition pair, such as (b1, b2) 1/4 (4,3), (4,2) and (3,2). Moreover it is shown that the best choice for a MSS system is the SMSEC code with the shortest check bit length; if the check bit lengths of at least two codes are equal, then the use of the element-compacted SMSEC code incurs in the smallest hardware overhead.
A real-time subsurface scattering rendering method for dynamic objects

The paper proposes a real-time subsurface scattering rendering method for dynamic objects. Subsurface scattering owned by translucent objects is a complex optical phenomenon. Since the complexity of the property description of translucent materials and their interaction with light, the pre-computing methods are usually used to render subsurface scattering of translucent objects, but these approaches either limit the objects to be non-deformable or limit the translucent materials to be homogeneous. In this paper, A new translucent material describing and decomposed light computing model is set forth, on basis of which image-space approximate computing methods for single scattering and multiple scattering are respectively proposed. The Algorithm can fulfill the real-time rendering of dynamic objects by fully exploiting the capability of graphics processing units (GPU).
Experiments on the Choice of Features for Learning Verb Classes

The choice of verb features is crucial for the learning of verb classes. This paper presents clustering experiments on 168 German verbs, which explore the relevance of features on three levels of verb description, purely syntactic frame types, prepositional phrase information and selectional preferences. In contrast to previous approaches concentrating on the sparse data problem, we present evidence for a linguistically defined limit on the usefulness of features which is driven by the idiosyncratic properties of the verbs and the specific attributes of the desired verb classification.
An Iterative Unified Decoding for Decode-Quantize-Forward Relaying

This paper proposes a design strategy for decode- quantize-forward (DQF) relaying in which two relay nodes parallelly forward quantized a-posteriori loglikelihood ratio (LLR) after channel decoding. A primary focus is on cross correlation among quantized bits. When the source signal is received by plural relays and they are transmitted independently, the parallel streams can be regarded as an imperfect parallel repetition streams, and the final destination can detect the concatenated code sequences. In the proposed scheme, taking into account this feature, we have designed its iterative unified decoding modules, in which we have a novel iterative unified decoding schemes that consists of vertical and horizontal iterations. We have demonstrated that the iterative unified decoding is capable of obtaining large iterative gain in terms of bit error rate (BER).
Hierarchical N-gram Algorithm for extracting Arabic Entities

Entities Extraction becomes very important for developing many applications of Natural Language Processing (NLP). In this paper, we present a new algorithm to extract entities from Arabic text. The approach uses the semi-structured knowledge source: Arabic Wikipedia to predict the words that constitutes an Arabic entity. Our method is generic and can be applied directly to other languages to extract entities. The proposed method has been designed to analyze Arabic text hierarchically with variable length N-gram. The experimental results have proven that the proposed system is very efficient in detecting entities from large set of Arabic news.
ALS: Aggregated Location Service for routing in MANETs

One of the biggest challenges in MANETs is the design of scalable routing protocols. With the development and application of position devices, location-based routing has received growing attention. An important component of these protocols is the management of the location information at network nodes, this work is done by location services. In this paper, we present one such scheme called aggregated location service (ALS) which scales well in large mobile ad-hoc networks. Simulation results show that under a specific environment the overhead cost of ALS is asymptotically lower than common methods that had been proposed for MANETs, while its reliability is reasonable.
Factors influencing the conservation characteristics of baled and precision-chop grass silages

The composition of baled silage on Irish farms frequently differs from that of comparable precision-chop silage. This paper concerns a field-scale study designed to investigate: (a) the effects of number of layers (2, 4, 6 or 8) of polyethylene stretch film and the duration of storage (7 vs. 18 months) on the conservation characteristics of baled silage, and (b) the conservation characteristics of baled (4 layers of stretch film) and precision-chop silages. All silages were made following three durations of wilting (0, 24 or 48 h). Wilting restricted silage fermentation, with silage pH being highest (P<0.001) and the concentration of fermentation products lowest (P<0.001) for the 48 h wilt treatment. Wrapping bales in only 2 layers of polyethylene stretch film resulted in extensive visible mould growth, but mould growth was practically eliminated by the application of 4 or more layers of film. Silage fermentation characteristics were generally improved by wilting, and by 4 compared to 2 layers of stretch film. Extending the storage duration of baled silage from 7 to 18 months reduced (P<0.001) the concentration of fermentation products and increased in-silo fresh weight losses (P<0.001) and visible mould growth. Whereas 4 layers of conventional stretch film are normally sufficient, 6 layers may be necessary to prevent mould growth when bales of unwilted silage are stored for a second season. Under good farm-management conditions differences observed between baled and precision-chop silages probably result mainly from differences in the concentration of dry matter in herbage at ensiling.
Sub-sentencial Paraphrasing by Contextual Pivot Translation

The ability to generate or to recognize paraphrases is key to the vast majority of NLP applications. As correctly exploiting context during translation has been shown to be successful, using context information for paraphrasing could also lead to improved performance. In this article, we adopt the pivot approach based on parallel multilingual corpora proposed by (Bannard and Callison-Burch, 2005), which finds short paraphrases by finding appropriate pivot phrases in one or several auxiliary languages and back-translating these pivot phrases into the original language. We show how context can be exploited both when attempting to find pivot phrases, and when looking for the most appropriate paraphrase in the original subsentential "envelope". This framework allows the use of paraphrasing units ranging from words to large sub-sentential fragments for which context information from the sentence can be successfully exploited. We report experiments on a text revision task, and show that in these experiments our contextual sub-sentential paraphrasing system outperforms a strong baseline system.
Rapamycin inhibits trypanosome cell growth by preventing TOR complex 2 formation

Target of rapamycin (TOR) kinases control cell growth through two functionally distinct multiprotein complexes. TOR complex 1 (TORC1) controls temporal cell growth and is sensitive to rapamycin, whereas TOR complex 2 (TORC2) is rapamycin resistant and regulates spatial cell growth. Here, we identified two TOR orthologues, TbTOR1 and TbTOR2, in the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei, as well as orthologues of the well-known TORC1 and TORC2 partners, KOG1/raptor and AVO3/rictor. TbTOR proteins differ in their functions, subcellular localization, and rapamycin sensitivity. TbTOR1 controls cell growth by regulating cell cycle, nucleolus structure, and protein synthesis, whereas TbTOR2 coordinates cell polarization and cytokinesis. Rapamycin treatment of bloodstream trypanosomes resulted in a pronounced reduction of cell proliferation, with an EC50 of 152 nM. Unique for a eukaryote, we observed that rapamycin acted exclusively by preventing TORC2 formation, with no effect on TORC1. Our findings on TOR signaling in this protozoan, which is located in a distal position in the eukaryotic cell lineage, highlight the clinical possibilities of rapamycin derivates and provide valuable insights into understanding rapamycin-mediated inhibition of TORC2.
The ToxAvapA Toxin-Antitoxin Locus Contributes to the Survival of Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae during Infection

Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is an opportunistic pathogen that is a common cause of acute and recurrent mucosal infections. One uncharacterized NTHi toxin-antitoxin (TA) module, NTHI1912-1913, is a host inhibition of growth (higBA) homologue. We hypothesized that this locus, which we designated toxAvapA, contributed to NTHi survival during infection. We deleted toxAvapA and determined that growth of the mutant in defined media was not different from the parent strain. We tested the mutant for persistence during long-term in vitro co-culture with primary human respiratory tissues, which revealed that the ΔtoxAvapA mutant was attenuated for survival. We then performed challenge studies using the chinchilla model of otitis media and determined that mutant survival was also reduced in vivo. Following purification, the toxin exhibited ribonuclease activity on RNA in vitro, while the antitoxin did not. A microarray comparison of the transcriptome revealed that the tryptophan biosynthetic regulon was significantly repressed in the mutant compared to the parent strain. HPLC studies of conditioned medium confirmed that there was no significant difference in the concentration of tryptophan remaining in the supernatant, indicating that the uptake of tryptophan by the mutant was not affected. We conclude that the role of the NTHi toxAvapA TA module in persistence following stress is multifactorial and includes effects on essential metabolic pathways.
The link between quality and accreditation of residency programs: the surveyors’ perceptions

ABSTRACT Accreditation of medical residency programs has become globally important. Currently it is moving from the goal of attaining minimal standards to a model of continuous improvement. In some countries, the accreditation system engages peers (physicians) to survey residency programs. The surveyors are sometimes volunteers, usually engaged in multiple clinical and education activities. Few studies have investigated the benefits of residency program evaluation and accreditation from the perspective of the surveyors. As peers they both conduct and receive accreditation surveys, which puts them in a privileged position in that it provides the surveyor with an opportunity to share experiences and knowledge and apply what is learned in their own context. The objective of this study is to obtain the perceptions of these surveyors about the impact of an accreditation system on residency programs. Surveyors participated in semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis was performed on the interview data, and resulting topics were grouped into five themes: Burden (of documentation and of time needed); Efficiency and efficacy of the accreditation process; Training and experience of surveyors; Being a peer; Professional skills and recognition of surveyors. These categories were organized into two major themes: ‘Structure and Process’ and ‘Human Resources’. The study participants proposed ways to improve efficiency including diminish the burden of documentation to the physicians involved in the process and to increase efforts on training programs and payment for surveyors and program directors. Based on the results we propose a conceptual framework to improve accreditation systems. Abbreviations: PD: Program director
Credit to Women Entrepreneurs: The Curse of the Trustworthier Sex

Women entrepreneurs are known not only to reimburse loans swifter than men, but also to receive smaller loans. However, on average women have smaller-scope business projects and are poorer than men. A deeper investigation is thus required in order to assess the existence of gender discrimination in small-business lending. This is precisely the aim of this paper. Its contribution is twofold. Firstly, it proposes a new estimation method for assessing discrimination in loan allocation. This method operationalizes the theoretical “double standard” approach developed by Ferguson and Peters (1995, Journal of Finance). Secondly, this paper applies the new methodology to an exceptionally rich database from a Brazilian microfinance institution. The empirical results point to gender discrimination. Additionally, it is shown that reducing the information asymmetry through relationship brings no remedy to the curse of the trustworthier sex.
Clinical and physiological associations of some physical signs observed in patients with chronic airways obstruction

A study of the relation between physical signs and the clinical and physiological pattern of chronic lung disease with obstruction has been carried out on 24 patients with varying degrees of airways obstruction. One sign (the forced expiratory time) was a direct reflection of the obstruction, but a number of other signs which also correlated significantly with the specific airway conductance were probably related to secondary effects on lung volume (increased resonance), disordered pattern of muscle action (tracheal tug and use of accessory muscles) or to excessive swings of intrathoracic pressure (excavation of supraclavicular fossae). Other signs which are regularly present but which did not correlate significantly with the severity of the airways obstruction were often related to other factors such as age or duration of symptoms (tracheal length). The difficulties in deciding the origin of other signs such as wheezes (rhonchi) or costal paradox are discussed.
Middle Turbinate Resection: Impact on Outcomes in Endoscopic Sinus Surgery

There is considerable controversy concerning the advisability and efficacy of middle turbinate resection in endoscopic sinus surgery. Some have reported that it causes an increase in the incidence of frontal sinusitis, while others have found no such association. Surprisingly, in a 35-year review of turbinate surgery literature, Clement and White did not find a single prospective study of turbinate surgery. In this article, we briefly report our prospective study of middle turbinate resection during endoscopic sinus surgery. Our findings lead us to believe that middle turbinate resection has no deleterious effects on the results of endoscopic sinus surgery.
Rare variants, private polymorphisms, and locus heterozygosity in Amerindian populations.

The results of 21,103 electrophoretic typings distributed across 28 polypeptides in members of 12 Amerindian tribes are reported, and the accumulated results of electrophoretic studies on these same polypeptides in 21 Amerindian tribes are then analyzed. Thus far 11 'private' polymorphisms have been identified in these tribes. When the tribal samples are combined and traits achieving polymorphic proportions in the total sample excluded from consideration, the average frequency of rare variants is 2.8 per 1,000 determinations. For a subset of 23 of these polypeptides also studied in Caucasians and Japanese, variant frequencies per 1,000 determinations are: Indians, 2.2; Caucasians (British), 1.6; and Japanese, 1.5. Average locus heterogeneity for these polypeptides (based on rare variants plus polymorphisms) is: Indians, . 049; Caucasians, . 078; and Japanese, . 077. A higher proportion of loci are monomorphic within tribes than within civilized urban populations. It is argued that for inferences concerning the forces maintaining genetic variability within populations, studies on samples from tribespeople are much more appropriate than studies on samples from civilized urban populations.
A Note on Some Sampling Characteristics of the Measure of Sampling Adequacy (MSA).

The distributional characteristics of the measure of sampling adequacy (MSA) were investigated in sample correlation matrices generated from multivariate normal populations with covariance matrix equal to the identity. Systematic variation of sample size and number of variables resulted in minimal fluctuation of the overall MSA from . 50. Implications for the use of the index were discussed.
Evolution of male-killing Spiroplasma (Procaryotae: Mollicutes) inferred from ribosomal spacer sequences.

that are vertically transmitted through eggs. Some of these maternally inherited symbionts have adopted a parasitic strategy, manipulating host reproduction to spread through and persist in host populations instead of providing a direct physiological benefit to their host. Reported cases of this behavior include cytoplasmic incompatibility, feminization of genetic males, induction of parthenogenesis, or the killing of male offspring during embryogenesis (male-killing). These cases are almost exclusively associated with bacteria of the genus Wolbachia (O’Neill et al., 1997). Male-killing is the main exception to this pattern, since it was found to be produced by at least nine different bacteria of four different taxonomic groups (Mollicutes, Enterobacteriaceae, Rickettsiaceae, Flavobacteria) (Hurst et al., 1997, 1999a, b, c). The observed taxonomic diversity suggests that the male-killing behavior arose several times independently. We report on the evolution of male-killing within the genus Spiroplasma (Procaryotae: Mollicutes), using DNA sequence data. Spiroplasmas have been reported to produce male-killing in the Drosophila willistoni species group (Diptera: Drosophilidae) and in two beetles, Adalia bipunctata and Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) (Hurst et al., 1999c; Majerus et al., 1999; Williamson and Poulson, 1979). The phylogenetic analysis of 16S rDNA sequences showed the symbiont of D. willistoni, Spiroplasma poulsonii of Spiroplasma serogroup II, and the ladybird male-killers to fall into distantly related clades. The latter were here found to form a monophyletic clade with Spiroplasma ixodetis of Spiroplasma serogroup VI. However, 16S rDNA provided no sufficient resolution to determine the exact phylogenetic relationships within this clade (Majerus et al., 1999; for serogroup classification of S. ixodetis and S. poulsonii, see Tully et al., 1995; Williamson et al., 1999). Consequently, although malekilling apparently arose twice within the genus Spiroplasma, once in the lineage leading to S. poulsonii and once in the S. ixodetis-clade, it still remains unknown whether male-killing spiroplasmas of ladybirds evolved Evolution of male-killing Spiroplasma (Procaryotae: Mollicutes) inferred from ribosomal spacer sequences
Mathematical Morphology based gray scale Image Segmentation using improved watershed transform

Mathematical Morphology provides systematic approach to analyze geometric Characteristic of signal or images, has been applied to many application such as Edge Detection, Object segmentation, noise suppression. Image segmentation is one of the most important categories of image processing. The watersheds transformation for image segmentation using mathematical morphology is widely used. When we use watershed transform is image, there is a serious cause of over segmentation. In this paper the proposed system has been applied to overcome the over segmentation problem by using improved segmentation and efficient technique for image segmentation using mathematical morphology.