Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Flexible views for view-based model-driven development

Model-driven development processes suffer from growing complexity, which leads to information spread across heterogeneous metamodels as well as drift and erosion between architecture and implementation. In this paper, we present a view-based modeling approach based on Orthographic Software Modeling (OSM), and introduce flexible views as a concept for the creation of custom, user-specific views. The envisioned benefit of the approach is to improve software quality, to increase consistency between the various modeling artifacts in model-driven software development, and to reduce the complexity for software developers.
Rate control in atrial fibrillation: many questions still unanswered.

More than 10 years ago, 7 rate versus rhythm control trials demonstrated that, in patients with paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation (AF), rate control was comparable to rhythm control regarding outcome.1,2 From that moment on, rate control became frontline therapy in older patients with few or acceptable symptoms of AF. Although rate control was an easy-to-perform therapeutic strategy, rate control criteria, and the selection of drugs, as well, were not evidence based. It is interesting that, in the rate versus rhythm control trials, rate-controlling strategies differed significantly. Whereas the Atrial Fibrillation Follow-up Investigation of Rhythm Management (AFFIRM) trial aimed to achieve heart rates comparable to the heart rates during sinus rhythm, patients included in the Rate Control versus Electric cardioversion for Persistent Atrial Fibrillation (RACE) study were treated with a more lenient approach. Thus far, only 1 randomized clinical trial has been performed evaluating different rate control strategies. The Rate Control Efficacy in Permanent Atrial Fibrillation: a comparison between Lenient and Strict Rate Control II (RACE II) study compared a strict rate control approach with a more lenient rate control approach in patients with permanent AF.3,4 The RACE II trial showed that a lenient rate control approach was not inferior in comparison with a strict rate control approach regarding cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in patients with permanent AF without severe heart failure (HF). Subsequently, the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, Heart Rhythm Society, and European Society of Cardiology guidelines adopted a lenient rate control approach as initial strategy in asymptomatic patients as long as the left ventricular function remains preserved.5,6 A more strict rate control approach, however, was recommended in more symptomatic patients or when left ventricular function deteriorates. Article see p 1604 No recommendation can be provided regarding …
Capsule endoscopy in young patients with iron deficiency anaemia and negative bidirectional gastrointestinal endoscopy

Background Recent data imply young patients (age ≤50 years) undergoing small-bowel (SB) capsule endoscopy (CE) for iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) show higher diagnostic yield (DY) for sinister pathology. We aimed to investigate DY of CE in a large cohort of young IDA patients, and evaluate factors predicting significant SB pathology. Materials and methods This was a retrospective, multicentre study (2010–2015) in consecutive, young patients (≤50 years) from 18 centres/12 countries, with negative bidirectional gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy undergoing SBCE for IDA. Exclusion criteria: previous/ongoing obscure-overt GI bleeding; age <19 or >50 years; comorbidities associated with IDA. Data retrieved: SBCE indications; prior investigations; medications; SBCE findings; final diagnosis. Clinical and laboratory data were analysed by multivariate logistic regression. Results Data on 389 young IDA patients were retrieved. In total, 169 (43.4%) were excluded due to incomplete clinical data; data from 220 (122F/98M; mean age 40.5 ± 8.6 years) patients were analysed. Some 71 patients had at least one clinically significant SBCE finding (DY: 32.3%). They were divided into two groups: neoplastic pathology (10/220; 4.5%), and non-neoplastic but clinically significant pathology (61/220; 27.7%). The most common significant but non-neoplastic pathologies were angioectasias (22/61) and Crohn’s disease (15/61). On multivariate analysis, weight loss and lower mean corpuscular volume(MCV) were associated with significant SB pathology (OR: 3.87; 95%CI: 1.3–11.3; p = 0.01; and OR: 0.96; 95%CI: 0.92–0.99; p = 0.03; respectively). Our model also demonstrates association between use of antiplatelets and significant SB pathology, although due to the small number of patients, definitive conclusions cannot be drawn. Conclusion In IDA patients ≤50 years with negative bidirectional GI endoscopy, overall DY of SBCE for clinically significant findings was 32.3%. Some 5% of our cohort was diagnosed with SB neoplasia; lower MCV or weight loss were associated with higher DY for SB pathology.
Foundations for modelling emotions in game characters: Modelling emotion effects on cognition

Affective gaming has received much attention lately, as the gaming community recognizes the importance of emotion in the development of engaging games. Affect plays a key role in the user experience, both in entertainment and in ‘serious’ games. Current focus in affective gaming is primarily on the sensing and recognition of the players' emotions, and on tailoring the game responses to these emotions. A significant effort is also being devoted to generating ‘affective behaviors’ in the game characters, and in player avatars, to enhance their realism and believability. Less emphasis is placed on modeling emotions, both their generation and their effects, in the game characters, and in user models representing the players. This paper accompanies a tutorial presented at ACII2009, whose objective was to provide theoretical foundations for modeling emotions in game characters, as well as practical hands-on guidelines to help game developers construct functional models of emotion. While the tutorial covered models of both emotion generation and emotion effects, this paper focuses on modeling emotion effects on cognition.
Introducing Enriched Concrete Syntax Trees

In our earlier research an area of consistent and systematic application of software metrics was explored. Strong dependency of applicability of software metrics on input programming language was recognized as one of the main weaknesses in this field. Introducing enriched Concrete Syntax Tree (eCST) for internal and intermediate representation of the source code resulted with step forward over this weakness. In this paper we explain innovation made by introducing eCST and provide idea for broader applicability of eCST in some other fields of software engineering.
Color Doppler Ultrasonography–Targeted Perforator Mapping and Angiosome-Based Flap Reconstruction

AbstractKnowledge about perforators and angiosomes has inspired new and innovative flap designs for reconstruction of defects throughout the body. The purpose of this article is to share our experience using color Doppler ultrasonography (CDU)–targeted perforator mapping and angiosome-based flap reconstruction throughout the body. The CDU was used to identify the largest and best-located perforator adjacent to the defect to target the reconstruction. The cutaneous or fasciocutaneous flaps were raised, mobilized, and designed according to the reconstructive needs as rotation, advancement, or turnover flaps. We performed 148 reconstructions in 130 patients. Eleven facial reconstructions, 118 reconstructions in the body, 7 in the upper limbs, and 12 in the lower limbs. The propeller flap was used in 135 of 148 (91%) cases followed by the turnover design in 10 (7%) and the V to Y flap in 3 (2%) cases. The flaps were raised on 1 perforator in 98 (67%), 2 perforators in 48 (33%), and 3 perforators in 2 (1%) flaps. The reconstructive goal was achieved in 143 of 148 reconstructions (97%). In 5 cases, surgical revision was needed. No flaps were totally lost indicating a patent pedicle in all cases. We had 10 (7%) cases of major complications and 22 (15%) minor complications. The CDU-targeted perforator mapping and angiosome-based flap reconstruction are simple to perform, and we recommended its use for freestyle perforator flap reconstruction. All perforators selected by CDU was identified during surgery and used for reconstruction. The safe boundaries of angiosomes remain to be established.
The Value of Being Wrong: Intermittent Feedback Delivery Alters the Striatal Response to Negative Feedback

Whereas positive feedback is both rewarding and informative, negative feedback can be construed as either punishing (because it is indicative of poor performance) or informative (because it may lead to goal attainment). In this neuroimaging experiment, we highlighted the informational value of negative feedback by intermixing trials with and without feedback. When performance feedback is expected, positive feedback triggers an increase in striatal activity, whereas negative feedback elicits a decrease in striatal activity. We predicted that, in contrast, when feedback receipt is unpredictable, the striatal response to negative feedback would increase. Participants performed a paired-associate learning task during fMRI scanning. In one condition (“blocked feedback”), the receipt of feedback was predictable—participants knew whether or not they would receive feedback for their responses. In another condition (“mixed feedback”), the receipt of feedback was unpredictable—on a random 50% of trials, participants received feedback, and they otherwise received no feedback. Negative feedback in the mixed feedback condition elicited more striatal activity than negative feedback in the blocked feedback condition. In contrast, feedback omission evoked more striatal activity when feedback delivery was expected, compared to when it was unpredictable. This pattern emerged from an increase in caudate activity in response to negative feedback in the mixed feedback condition and a decrease in ventral striatal activity in response to no feedback in this condition. These results suggest that, by emphasizing the informational value of negative feedback, an unpredictable feedback context alters the striatal response to negative feedback and to the omission of feedback.
Azathioprine and UVA Light Generate Mutagenic Oxidative DNA Damage

Oxidative stress and mutagenic DNA lesions formed by reactive oxygen species (ROS) are linked to human malignancy. Clinical treatments inducing chronic oxidative stress may therefore carry a risk of therapy-related cancer. We suggest that immunosuppression by azathioprine (Aza) may be one such treatment. Aza causes the accumulation of 6-thioguanine (6-TG) in patients' DNA. Here we demonstrate that biologically relevant doses of ultraviolet A (UVA) generate ROS in cultured cells with 6-TG–substituted DNA and that 6-TG and UVA are synergistically mutagenic. A replication-blocking DNA 6-TG photoproduct, guanine sulfonate, was bypassed by error-prone, Y-family DNA polymerases in vitro. A preliminary analysis revealed that in five of five cases, Aza treatment was associated with a selective UVA photosensitivity. These findings may partly explain the prevalence of skin cancer in long-term survivors of organ transplantation.
Optimization as Estimation with Gaussian Processes in Bandit Settings

Recently, there has been rising interest in Bayesian optimization -- the optimization of an unknown function with assumptions usually expressed by a Gaussian Process (GP) prior. We study an optimization strategy that directly uses an estimate of the argmax of the function. This strategy offers both practical and theoretical advantages: no tradeoff parameter needs to be selected, and, moreover, we establish close connections to the popular GP-UCB and GP-PI strategies. Our approach can be understood as automatically and adaptively trading off exploration and exploitation in GP-UCB and GP-PI. We illustrate the effects of this adaptive tuning via bounds on the regret as well as an extensive empirical evaluation on robotics and vision tasks, demonstrating the robustness of this strategy for a range of performance criteria.
Determination of specific capacitance of modified candlenut shell based carbon as electrode material for supercapacitor

Surface modification of candlenut shell carbon (CSC) using three chemicals: nitric acid (HNO3), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and sulfuric acid (H2SO4) has been carried out. Activation of CSC was performed using H3PO4 solution with different ratio between CSC and activator. Carbon surface area was determined by methylene blue adsorption method. Surface characterization was performed using FTIR spectroscopy and Boehm titration method. Specific capacitance of electrode prepared from CSAC (candlenuts shell activated carbon) materials was quantified by Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) measurement. The surface area before and after activation are 105,127 m2/g, 112,488 m2/g, 124,190 m2/g, and 135,167 m2/g, respectively. Surface modification of CSAC showed the improvement in the chemical functionality of CSAC surface. Analyses using FTIR spectroscopy and Boehm titration showed that modifications with HNO3, H2SO4 and H2O2 on the surface of the CSAC increased the number of oxygen functional groups. As a consequence, the specific capacitance of CSAC modified with 65% HNO3 attained the highest value (127 μF/g). There is an incredible increase by a factor of 298% from electrode which was constructed with un-modified CSAC material. This increase correlates to the largest number of oxygen functional groups of CSAC modified with nitric acid (HNO3).
A comparative study of thematic mapping and scientific visualization

Thematic mapping and scientific visualization are two dedicated areas for visualizing a wide range of domain-specific data sets. From a general perspective, thematic mapping and scientific visualization reveal large overlaps in terms of visualization methods. However, these two disciplines are shaped by different driving forces and usage purposes. Accordingly, the concerns involved in the thematic mapping workflow that ranges from data source, data processing to map design principles may be quite different from those for scientific visualization and vice versa. Although some interdisciplinary researches between general mapping and scientific visualization have been conducted, little knowledge about the differences and commonalities between thematic mapping and scientific visualization is available. This research work is devoted to an in-depth comparative study with the aim to bridge these two disciplines by identifying their methodological strengths and synergetic effects. Comparison results show that thematic mapping goes steps further than scientific visualization in terms of data preprocessing, while scientific visualization relies more on the capability of users to visually process the data by themselves. We believe that scientific visualization can very well profit from thematic mapping methods to achieve some communication effects while thematic mapping can be very well extended to embrace some scientific visualization methods for the hotspot explorations.
Mutual authentication in RFID: security and privacy

In RFID protocols, tags identify and authenticate themselves to readers. At Asiacrypt 2007, Vaudenay studied security and privacy models for these protocols. We extend this model to protocols which offer reader authentication to tags. Whenever corruption is allowed, we prove that secure protocols cannot protect privacy unless we assume tags have a temporary memory which vanishes by itself. Under this assumption, we study several protocols. We enrich a few basic protocols to get secure mutual authentication RFID protocols which achieve weak privacy based on pseudorandom functions only, narrow-destructive privacy based on random oracles, and narrow-strong and forward privacy based on public-key cryptography.
Growth factor regulation of growth factor production by multiple gene transfer to chondrocytes

Of the many classes of molecules regulated by growth factors, growth factors themselves are not well investigated. We tested the hypothesis that combinations of endogenous growth factors interactively regulate the production of other growth factors. Growth factors have therapeutic potential for articular cartilage repair, and gene transfer is a promising approach to growth factor delivery. We tested the hypothesis using adult bovine articular chondrocytes treated with combinations of cDNAs encoding insulin-like growth factor I, bone morphogenetic protein-2 and protein-7, transforming growth factor β1, and fibroblast growth factor 2. We found that these growth factor transgenes regulated each other's growth factor production. This regulation ranged from stimulation to inhibition. Regulation by multiple transgenes was not predictable from the regulatory actions of the individual transgenes. Such interactions may be important for the selection of growth factor genes for cell-based therapies, including articular cartilage repair.
Molecular statics simulation of CdTe grain boundary structures and energetics using a bond-order potential

The structure and energetics of coincidence site lattice grain boundaries (GB) in CdTe are investigated by mean of molecular statics simulations, using the Cd–Zn–Te bond-order potential (second iteration) developed by Ward et al (2012 Phys. Rev. B 86 245203; 2013 J. Mol. Modelling 19 5469–77). The effects of misorientation (Σ value) and interface plane are treated separately, complying with the critical need for full five-parameter characterization of GB. In addition, stoichiometric shifts, occurring between the inner interfaces and their adjacent atomic layers, are also predicted, revealing the energetic preference of Te-rich boundaries, opening opportunities for crystallography-based intrinsic interface doping. Our results also suggest that the intuitive assumption that Σ3 boundaries with low-indexed planes are more energetically favorable is often unfounded, except for coherent twins developing on {111} boundary planes. Therefore, Σ5, 7 or 9 boundaries, with lower interface energy than that of twin boundaries lying on different facets, are frequently encountered.
Enteric nervous system

The enteric nervous system (ENS) derives from the neural crest and consists of neurons distributed in two ganglionated plexuses, myenteric and submucosal, located within the walls of the gut. The ENS contains as many neurons as the spinal cord (approximately 80-100 million neurons) and controls intestinal motility and secretion largely independently of influences from the CNS.1–5 The ENS is affected by Lewy body pathology at early stages of PD,6,7 and by many genetic8,9 or immune9,10 neurologic disorders associated with gastrointestinal dysmotility. The aim of this paper is to briefly review the functional and neurochemical organization of the ENS and its involvement in neurologic disorders. There are recent comprehensive reviews on these subjects.3,8,9,11,12 The control of motility and secretion in the gastrointestinal tract depends on both extrinsic parasympathetic and sympathetic innervation and intrinsic innervation, provided by the ENS. Extrinsic parasympathetic inputs originate in the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus, which controls primarily the motility of the esophagus and stomach, and the sacral parasympathetic nucleus, which contributes to control of motility of the distal colon and rectum. The prevertebral sympathetic ganglia mediate peripheral reflexes that inhibit motility of the gut. The intrinsic innervation of the gut consists of the ganglia of the ENS, which are grouped into two plexuses: the myenteric plexus (of Auerbach), located between the outer longitudinal and the inner circular muscle layers, and submucosal plexus (of Meissner), located between the circular muscle and the muscularis mucosae (figure). 1–4 The ENS controls intestinal motility and secretion largely independently of extrinsic parasympathetic and sympathetic innervation, although these extrinsic influences have a modulatory role on ENS activity. Neurons of the myenteric plexus control the activity of the smooth muscle of the gut whereas those in the submucosal plexus also regulate mucosal secretion and blood flow. …
Irreversible electroporation in primary and metastatic hepatic malignancies

Background: Liver cancer makes up a huge percentage of cancer mortality worldwide. Irreversible electroporation (IRE) is a relatively new minimally invasive nonthermal ablation technique for tumors that applies short pulses of high frequency electrical energy to irreversibly destabilize cell membrane to induce tumor cell apoptosis. Methods: This review aims to investigate the studies regarding the use of IRE treatment in liver tumors and metastases to liver. We searched PubMed for all of IRE relevant English language articles published up to September 2016. They included clinical trials, experimental studies, observational studies, and reviews. This review manuscript is nothing with ethics issues and ethical approval is not provided. Results: In recent years, increasingly more studies in both preclinical and clinical settings have been conducted to examine the safety and efficacy of this new technique, shedding light on the crucial advantages and disadvantages that IRE possesses. Unlike the current leading thermal ablation techniques, such as radiofrequency ablation (RFA), microwave ablation (MWA), and cryoablation, IRE requires shorter ablation time without damaging adjacent important vital structures. Conclusion: Although IRE has successfully claimed its valuable status in the field of hepatic cancer treatment both preclinical and clinical settings. In order to systemically test and establish its safety and efficacy for clinical applications, more studies still need to be conducted.
What you don’t know can hurt you

This white paper, written for executives and IT professionals, explores the growing dangers of anonymizers, an unfortunately very effective technique for circumventing Web use restrictions. The white paper also describes how the iPrism® solution from St. Bernard® combats anonymizer tactics through dynamic filtering and classification methodologies for superior Web protection from internal and external threats.