Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical impact and predisposing factors of delayed-onset neutropenia after autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation for B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma: association with an incremental risk of infectious events.

BACKGROUND Clinical significance of delayed-onset neutropenia (DON) after autologous hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (ASCT) has not been well described. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to examine risk factors and clinical impact of DON. DESIGN AND METHODS Subjects were consecutive 108 patients with B-cell lymphoma receiving ASCT. We defined DON as absolute neutrophil counts <1.0 x 10(9)/l at any point from 30 days onward after ASCT without apparent causes of neutropenia. Documented infectious events were reviewed from 1 to 18 months after ASCT. RESULTS Fifty-two percent of patients received rituximab. Cumulative incidence of DON was 50% at 1 year. Rituximab usage was identified as an independent risk factor of DON. A total of 117 infectious events were documented, of which 24 events occurred during DON period. Cumulative incidence of total infectious events was 75% and 42% in the groups with and without DON, respectively (P = 0.001). Varicella-zoster virus (P = 0.033) and upper respiratory infection (P = 0.016) were frequent in the patients experiencing DON. In a multivariable analysis, DON remained a significant factor for total infectious events and upper respiratory infection. CONCLUSIONS Rituximab usage is an independent risk factor of DON. DON correlates with increased occurrence of infectious events. Careful follow-up would be needed after the onset of DON.
Bioelectrical impedance vector analysis for evaluating zinc supplementation in prepubertal and healthy children

Background The prevalence of abnormal nutritional status has increased in children and adolescents. Nutritional assessment is important for monitoring the health and nutritional status. Bioelectrical impedance vector analysis (BIVA) combines changes in tissue hydration and structure and body composition that can be assessed. Objectives The objective of this study was to use BIVA to evaluate nutritional status in 60 prepubertal children, aged between 8 and 9 years, supplemented with zinc, to detect possible changes in body composition. Design We performed a randomized, controlled, triple-blind study. The children were divided into the control group (CG; sorbitol 10%, n=29) or the experimental group (EG; 10 mg Zn/day, n=31), and the duration of the experiment was 3 months. Anthropometric assessments were performed for all of the children. Results The body mass index-for-age increased after oral zinc supplementation in the EG (p=0.005). BIVA indicated that the CG demonstrated a tendency for dehydration and decreased soft tissue and the EG demonstrated a tendency for increased soft tissue, primarily the fat-free mass. After analyses of BIVA ellipses, we observed that this method could detect improvements in body composition in healthy children supplemented with zinc. Conclusions These results suggest that BIVA could be an auxiliary method for studying a small population undergoing zinc intervention.
Modeling and analysis of open defect in through silicon via (TSV) channel

Vertical interconnections of stacked chips through the silicon substrates have enabled higher performance of electronic products with lower power consumption. The advantage of through silicon via (TSV) technique can be maximized by increasing the number of I/Os, which requires fine pitch and smaller diameter. The scale-down of TSVs results in decreased yield level caused by lack of precision in fabrication process. Among various types of possible defects, open defect creates a disconnection in the channel, electrically separating the transmitting terminal from the receiving target. In this paper, the equivalent circuit model for open defect is proposed and inserted as circuit component in a circuit model for defect-free channel. Open defect is analyzed in different locations along the channel to examine the effect in signal transmission characteristics.
Best point detour query in road networks

A point detour is a temporary deviation from a user preferred path P (not necessarily a shortest network path) for visiting a data point such as a supermarket or McDonald's. The goodness of a point detour can be measured by the additional traveling introduced, called point detour cost or simply detour cost. Given a preferred path to be traveling on, Best Point Detour (BPD) query aims to identify the point detour with the minimum detour cost. This problem can be frequently found in our daily life but is less studied. In this work, the efficient processing of BPD query is investigated with support of devised optimization techniques. Furthermore, we investigate continuous-BPD query with target at the scenario where the path to be traveling on continuously changes when a user is moving to the destination along the preferred path. The challenge of continuous-BPD query lies in finding a set of update locations which split P into partitions. In the same partition, the user has the same BPD. We process continuous-BPD query by running BPD queries in a deliberately planned strategy. The efficiency study reveals that the number of BPD queries executed is optimal. The efficiency of BPD query and continuous-BPD query processing has been verified by extensive experiments.
Please Scroll down for Article Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Sensitivity Analysis in Evolutionary Robotic Simulations of Bipedal Dinosaur Running Article Sensitivity Analysis in Evolutionary Robotic Simulations of Bipedal Dinosaur Running

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. ABSTRACT—Constructing musculoskeletal models of extinct vertebrates requires subjective assumptions about soft tissue parameters rarely preserved in the fossil record. Despite these necessary assumptions about fundamental input values, pa-leobiologists rarely perform objective tests of best-estimate models before reaching conclusions based on predicted results. The extent to which lack of knowledge on soft tissue anatomy limits the accuracy of running speed estimates of extinct dinosaurs is therefore poorly understood. In this study, a sensitivity analysis is performed on an evolutionary robotics model of the non-avian theropod dinosaur Allosaurus, used previously to estimate maximum running speed in this extinct animal. A range of muscle parameters were varied over the range observed in extant vertebrates, whereas mass-related parameters were altered across the range of published estimates for Allosaurus. Muscle parameters have a linear relationship with maximum running speed, whereas surprisingly total body mass and torso center of mass have little effect. Muscle force values produced the greatest range in predicted running speeds (4.5–10.7 m/s) and stride lengths (4–5.8 m) in the sensitivity analysis, equating to 65.9% and 30.7% variation about the original 'best-estimate' prediction, a relatively high potential margin of error. These results highlight the importance of sensitivity analyses in biomechanical modeling of extinct taxa, particularly where values for soft tissues parameters are not tightly constrained. The current range in plausible values for soft tissue properties makes a robust quantitative assessment of behavioral ecology and species interactions in dinosaurian communities extremely difficult.
Radio environment mapping with mobile devices in the TV white space

In this paper, we envision a scenario where mobile devices perform at least part-time spectrum sensing in a collaborative fashion under the control of a central server. The goal is to create an adequate `radio environment map' for the `white spaces' that will be useful for spectrum management decisions. We lay out the research challenges, describe a prototype implementation using a DTV receiver dongle interfaced with an Android-based mobile device, and present preliminary performance measurements.
Private Virtual Infrastructure: A Model for Trustworthy Utility Cloud Computing

Abstract : Private Virtual Infrastructure is a security architecture for cloud computing which uses a new trust model to share the responsibility of security in cloud computing between the service provider and client, decreasing the risk exposure to both. Private Virtual Infrastructure is under control of the information owner while the cloud fabric is under control of the service provider. The Private Virtual Infrastructure architecture comprises a cluster of trusted computing fabric platforms that host virtual servers running an application server with a Locator Bot security service. The cloud Locator Bot pre-measures the cloud platform for security properties to determine the trustworthiness of the platform. The Locator Bot uses Trusted Execution Technology and virtual Trusted Platform Modules to pre-measure the target environment and securely provision the Private Virtual Infrastructure in the cloud thus protecting information by preventing data from being placed in malicious or untrusted environments. Private Virtual Infrastructure-- including Locator Bot--provides organizations tools to maintain control of their information in the cloud and realize benefits of cloud computing, with assurance that their information is protected. This paper presents a cloud trust model, Private Virtual Infrastructure architecture, and a Locator Bot protocol in enough detail to support further analysis or implementation.
A Synthetic Lethal Screen Identifies a Role for Lin-44/Wnt in C. elegans Embryogenesis

Background The C. elegans proteins PTP-3/LAR-RPTP and SDN-1/Syndecan are conserved cell adhesion molecules. Loss-of-function (LOF) mutations in either ptp-3 or sdn-1 result in low penetrance embryonic developmental defects. Work from other systems has shown that syndecans can function as ligands for LAR receptors in vivo. We used double mutant analysis to test whether ptp-3 and sdn-1 function in a linear genetic pathway during C. elegans embryogenesis. Results We found animals with LOF in both sdn-1 and ptp-3 exhibited a highly penetrant synthetic lethality (SynLet), with only a small percentage of animals surviving to adulthood. Analysis of the survivors demonstrated that these animals had a synergistic increase in the penetrance of embryonic developmental defects. Together, these data strongly suggested PTP-3 and SDN-1 function in parallel during embryogenesis. We subsequently used RNAi to knockdown ~3,600 genes predicted to encode secreted and/or transmembrane molecules to identify genes that interacted with ptp-3 or sdn-1. We found that the Wnt ligand, lin-44, was SynLet with sdn-1, but not ptp-3. We used 4-dimensional time-lapse analysis to characterize the interaction between lin-44 and sdn-1. We found evidence that loss of lin-44 caused defects in the polarization and migration of endodermal precursors during gastrulation, a previously undescribed role for lin-44 that is strongly enhanced by the loss of sdn-1. Conclusions PTP-3 and SDN-1 function in compensatory pathways during C. elegans embryonic and larval development, as simultaneous loss of both genes has dire consequences for organismal survival. The Wnt ligand lin-44 contributes to the early stages of gastrulation in parallel to sdn-1, but in a genetic pathway with ptp-3. Overall, the SynLet phenotype provides a robust platform to identify ptp-3 and sdn-1 interacting genes, as well as other genes that function in development, yet might be missed in traditional forward genetic screens.
A New Approach to Word Sense Disambiguation Based on Context Similarity

One of the major issues in the process of machine translation is word sense disambiguation (WSD), which is defined as choosing the correct meaning of a multi-meaning word. Supervised learning methods are usually used to solve this problem. The disambiguation task is carried out using the statistics of the translated documents (as training data) or dual corpora of source and target languages. In this paper we present a supervised learning method for WSD, which is based on Cosine Similarity. As the first step, we extract two sets of features; the set of words that have occurred frequently in the text and the set of words surrounding the ambiguous word. We will present the results of evaluating the proposed schemes and illustrate the effect of weighting strategies proposed. The results are promising compared to the methods existing in the literature. In corpora-based Translation methods translations are generated on the basis of statistical or probabilistic models whose parameters are extracted from the analysis of a bilingual corpus. Statistical translation is based on the study of frequencies of various linguistic units, including words, lexemes, morphemes, letters, etc., in a sample corpus in order to calculate a set of probabilities, so that various linguistic problems such as ambiguity can be solved. In This paper, we present a WSD approach that is based on inner product of vectors algorithm. The proposed scheme is a supervised approach in which sense-tagged data is used to train the classifier.
Recovery of a sexual and an apomictic hybrid from crosses between the facultative apomicts Hieracium caespitosum and H. praealtum

Hybridisation is a rare event in facultatively apomictic species. We report the recovery of two hybrids from reciprocal crosses between the facultatively apomictic species Hieracium praealtum and H. caespitosum. Both parents were tetraploid (2n=4x=36). H. caespitosum x H. praealtum (CR6) was a hexaploid (2n=6x=54) and an apomict. The increased ploidy number is evidence of a BIII hybrid origin, having arisen from the fusion of a reduced and an unreduced gamete. In contrast, the hybrid recovered from the reciprocal cross H. praealtum x H. caespitosum (RC4) was a tetraploid and therefore probably arose as a BII hybrid from the fusion of two reduced gametes. Further evidence for this is the expression of sexuality in this plant. As apomixis in Hieracium is thought to be determined by a single dominant locus, a sexual plant is consistent with a model of inheritance where this represents the putative homozygous recessive phenotype. The formation of a sexual plant from the hybridisation of apomicts has potentially significant evolutionary implications. The formation of an interspecific BIII hybrid has not previously been recorded.
Simultaneous Irradiation of Fibroblasts and Carcinoma Cells Repress the Secretion of Soluble Factors Able to Stimulate Carcinoma Cell Migration

Stroma mediated wound healing signals may share similarities with the ones produced by tumor’s microenvironment and their modulation may impact tumor response to the various anti-cancer treatments including radiation therapy. Therefore we conducted this study, to assess the crosstalk between stromal and carcinoma cells in response to radiotherapy by genetic modulation of the stroma and irradiation. We found that fibroblasts irrespective of their RhoB status do not modulate intrinsic radiosensitivity of TC-1 but produce diffusible factors able to modify tumor cell fate. Then we found that Wt and RhoB deficient fibroblasts stimulated TC-1 migration through distinct mechanisms which are TGF-β1 and MMP-mediated respectively. Lastly, we found that simultaneous irradiation of fibroblasts and TC-1 abrogated the pro-migratory phenotype by repression of TGF-β and MMP secretion. This last result is highly relevant to the clinical situation and suggests that conversely to, the current view; irradiated stroma would not enhance carcinoma migration and could be manipulated to promote anti-tumor immune response.
Review rating prediction based on the content and weighting strong social relation of reviewers

Review rating is more helpful than review binary classification for many decision processes such as consumption decision-making, company product quality tracking and public opinion mining. In the review rating, reviewers are influenced not only by their own subjective feelings, but also by others' rating to the same product. Existing review rating prediction methods are mainly based on the content of reviews, which only consider the subjective factors of reviewers, but not consider the impact of other people in the social relations of reviewers. Based on it, we propose a review rating prediction method by incorporating the character of reviewer's social relations, as regularization constraints, into content-based methods. In addition, we further propose a method to classify the social relations of reviewers into strong social relation and ordinary social relation. For strong social relation of reviewers, we give higher weight than ordinary social relation when incorporating the two social relations into content-based methods. Experiments on two real movie review datasets demonstrate that the method of considering different social relations has better performance than the content-based methods and the method of considering social relations as a whole.
Intersection of Longest Paths in Graph Theory and Predicting Performance in Facial Recognition

A set of subsets is said to have the Helly property if the condition that each pair of subsets has a non-empty intersection implies that the intersection of all subsets has a nonempty intersection. In 1966, Gallai noticed that the set of all longest paths of a connected graph is pairwise intersecting and asked if the set had the Helly property. While it is not true in general, a number of classes of graphs have been shown to have the property. In this dissertation, we show that K4-minor-free graphs, interval graphs, circular arc graphs, and the intersection graphs of spider graphs are classes that have this property. The accuracy of facial recognition algorithms on images taken in controlled conditions has improved significantly over the last two decades. As the focus is turning to more unconstrained or relaxed conditions and toward videos, there is a need to better understand what factors influence performance. If these factors were better understood, it would be easier to predict how well an algorithm will perform when new conditions are introduced. Previous studies have studied the effect of various factors on the verification rate (VR), but less attention has been paid to the false accept rate (FAR). In this dissertation, we study the effect various factors have on the FAR as well as the correlation between marginal FAR and VR. Using these relationships, we propose two models to predict marginal VR and demonstrate that the models predict better than using the previous global VR. INDEX WORDS: Helly Property, longest paths, facial recognition. TITLE: INTERSECTION OF LONGEST PATHS IN GRAPH THEORY AND PREDICTING PERFORMANCE IN FACIAL RECOGNITION
Identification of Novel Adhesins of M. tuberculosis H37Rv Using Integrated Approach of Multiple Computational Algorithms and Experimental Analysis

Pathogenic bacteria interacting with eukaryotic host express adhesins on their surface. These adhesins aid in bacterial attachment to the host cell receptors during colonization. A few adhesins such as Heparin binding hemagglutinin adhesin (HBHA), Apa, Malate Synthase of M. tuberculosis have been identified using specific experimental interaction models based on the biological knowledge of the pathogen. In the present work, we carried out computational screening for adhesins of M. tuberculosis. We used an integrated computational approach using SPAAN for predicting adhesins, PSORTb, SubLoc and LocTree for extracellular localization, and BLAST for verifying non-similarity to human proteins. These steps are among the first of reverse vaccinology. Multiple claims and attacks from different algorithms were processed through argumentative approach. Additional filtration criteria included selection for proteins with low molecular weights and absence of literature reports. We examined binding potential of the selected proteins using an image based ELISA. The protein Rv2599 (membrane protein) binds to human fibronectin, laminin and collagen. Rv3717 (N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase) and Rv0309 (L,D-transpeptidase) bind to fibronectin and laminin. We report Rv2599 (membrane protein), Rv0309 and Rv3717 as novel adhesins of M. tuberculosis H37Rv. Our results expand the number of known adhesins of M. tuberculosis and suggest their regulated expression in different stages.
Stereo Vision for Dynamic Urban Environment Perception Using Semantic Context in Evidential Grid

Uncertainty from urban environment arises not only by the imprecise pose estimation and noisy information in images but also by the lack of semantic information. This paper presents an approach to improve the perception capability of intelligent vehicles in complex urban environments. The method uses the meta-knowledge acquired from a built Semantic Context image and applies it on evidential grids constructed from the Stereo Vision. In the detection of semantic information problem, Texton and Dispton maps are used as a source to model a probabilistic joint boosting classifier. The evidential grids are based on occupancy grids, an approach based on the Dempster-Shafer theory that manages different sources of uncertainty arising in dynamic temporal scenes. An additional structure is created to handle a refined set of propositions originated from the meta-knowledge available. This structure bound with evidential conflict analysis enables an accurate detection of stationary and mobile objects in the perception grid. The proposed work reports real experiments carried out in a challenging urban environment using the KITTI benchmark in which meaningful evaluation can be done to illustrate the validity and application of this approach.
Heuristics for Internet map discovery

Mercator is a program that uses hop-limited probes-the same primitive used in traceroute-to infer an Internet map. It uses informed random address probing to carefully exploring the IP address space when determining router adjacencies, uses source-route capable routers wherever possible to enhance the fidelity of the resulting map, and employs novel mechanisms for resolving aliases (interfaces belonging to the same router). This paper describes the design of these heuristics and our experiences with Mercator, and presents some preliminary analysis of the resulting Internet map.