Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance Analysis of Image Denoising with Wavelet Thresholding Methods for Different Levels of Decomposition

Image Denoising is an important part of diverse image processing and computer vision problems. The important property of a good image denoising model is that it should completely remove noise as far as possible as well as preserve edges. One of the most powerful and perspective approaches in this area is image denoising using discrete wavelet transform (DWT). In this paper, comparison of various Wavelets at different decomposition levels has been done. As number of levels increased, Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) of image gets decreased whereas Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Mean Square Error (MSE) get increased. A comparison of filters and various wavelet based methods has also been carried out to denoise the image. The simulation results reveal that wavelet based Bayes shrinkage method outperforms other methods.
Detection of Methylated Apoptosis-Associated Genes in Urine Sediments of Bladder Cancer Patients

Purpose: There is increasing evidence for a fundamental role for epigenetic silencing of apoptotic pathways in cancer. Changes in DNA methylation can be detected with a high degree of sensitivity, so we used the MethyLight assay to determine how methylation patterns of apoptosis-associated genes change during bladder carcinogenesis and whether DNA methylation could be detected in urine sediments. Experimental Design: We analyzed the methylation status of the 5′ regions of 12 apoptosis-associated genes (ARF, FADD, TNFRSF21, BAX, LITAF, DAPK, TMS-1, BCL2, RASSF1A, TERT, TNFRSF25, and EDNRB) in 18 bladder cancer cell lines, 127 bladder cancer samples, and 37 samples of adjacent normal bladder mucosa using the quantitative MethyLight assay. We also analyzed the methylation status in urine sediments of 20 cancer-free volunteers and 37 bladder cancer patients. Results: The 5′ regions of DAPK, BCL2, TERT, RASSFIA, and TNFRSF25 showed significant increases in methylation levels when compared with nonmalignant adjacent tissue (P ≤ 0.01). Methylation levels of BCL2 were significantly associated with tumor staging and grading (P ≤ 0.01), whereas methylation levels of RASSF1A and ARF were only associated with tumor stage (P ≤ 0.04), and TERT methylation and EDNRB methylation were predictors of tumor grade (P ≤ 0.02). To investigate clinical usefulness for noninvasive bladder cancer detection, we further analyzed the methylation status of the markers in urine samples of patients with bladder cancer. Methylation of DAPK, BCL2, and TERT in urine sediment DNA from bladder cancer patients was detected in the majority of samples (78%), whereas they were unmethylated in the urine sediment DNA from age-matched cancer-free individuals. Conclusions: Our results indicate that methylation of the 5′ region of apoptosis-associated genes is a common finding in patients with bladder carcinoma. The ability to detect methylation not only in bladder tissue, but also in urine sediments, suggests that methylation markers are promising tools for noninvasive detection of bladder cancers. Our results also indicate that some methylation markers, such as those in regions of RASSF1A and TNFRSF25, might be of limited use for detection because they are also methylated in normal bladder tissues.
Do the tuberculin skin test and the QuantiFERON-TB Gold in-tube test agree in detecting latent tuberculosis among high-risk contacts? A systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVES: The QuantiFERON-TB Gold in-tube test (QFT-GIT) and the tuberculin skin test (TST) are used to diagnose latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). However, conclusive evidence regarding the agreement of these two tests among high risk contacts is lacking. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to estimate the agreement between the TST and the QFT-GIT using kappa statistics. METHODS: According to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses guidelines, scientific databases including PubMed, Scopus, and Ovid were searched using a targeted search strategy to identify relevant studies published as of June 2015. Two researchers reviewed the eligibility of studies and extracted data from them. The pooled kappa estimate was determined using a random effect model. Subgroup analysis, Egger’s test and sensitivity analysis were also performed. RESULTS: A total of 6,744 articles were retrieved in the initial search, of which 24 studies had data suitable for meta-analysis. The pooled kappa coefficient and prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted kappa were 0.40 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.34 to 0.45) and 0.45 (95% CI, 0.38 to 0.49), respectively. The results of the subgroup analysis found that age group, quality of the study, location, and the TST cutoff point affected heterogeneity for the kappa estimate. No publication bias was found (Begg’s test, p=0.53; Egger’s test, p=0.32). CONCLUSIONS: The agreement between the QFT-GIT and the TST in diagnosing LTBI among high-risk contacts was found to range from fair to moderate.
A Novel Data Retrieving Mechanism in Wireless Sensor Networks with Path-Limited Mobile Sink

Sink mobility has been proposed to optimize energy efficiency and lifetime for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Many novel data retrieving algorithms or protocols are proposed based on sink mobility; they can be divided into two classes, namely path-unlimited and pathlimited algorithms. In terms of application range, the path-limited algorithms are more applicable in many scenarios. In path-limited WSNs, the challenge is optimizing network energy utilization and lifetime based on the limited conditions. In this paper, we propose a novel data retrieving mechanism named Multiple Enhanced Specified-deployed Subsinks (MESS) mechanism for WSNs with path-limited mobile sink. We argue that deploying some enhanced wireless nodes, namely subsinks to retrieve data locally, and then mobile sink passes though these subsinks and harvests data from them. Simulation results show that MES mechanism can dramatically improve network lifetime compare to traditional mechanism.
An Algorithm Using Administrative Data to Identify Patient Attachment to a Family Physician

Background. Commonly self-reported questions in population health surveys, such as “do you have a family physician? ”, represent one of the best-known sources of information about patients' attachment to family physicians. Is it possible to find a proxy for this information in administrative data? Objective. To identify the type of patient attachment to a family physician using administrative data. Methods. Using physician fee-for-service database and patients enrolment registries (Quebec, Canada, 2008–2010), we developed a step-by-step algorithm including three dimensions of the physician-patient relationship: patient enrolment with a physician, complete annual medical examinations (CME), and concentration of visits to a physician. Results. 68.1% of users were attached to a family physician; for 34.4% of them, attachment was defined by enrolment with a physician, for 31.5%, by CME without enrolment, and, for 34.1%, by concentration of visits to a physician without enrolment or CME. Eight types of patient attachment were described. Conclusion. When compared to findings with survey data, our measure comes out as a solid conceptual framework to identify patient attachment to a family physician in administrative databases. This measure could be of great value for physician/patient-based cohort development and impact assessment of different types of patient attachment on health services utilization.
Robotic manipulation in object composition space

Manipulating unknown objects in a cluttered environment is difficult because object composition is uncertain. Because of this uncertainty, earlier work has concentrated on finding the “best” object composition and based on this composition decided on manipulation actions. Contrary to earlier work, we 1) utilize different possible object compositions in decision making, 2) take advantage of object composition information provided by robot actions, 3) take into account the effect of different competing object hypothesis on the actual task to be performed. We cast the manipulation planning problem as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) which plans over possible hypotheses of object compositions. The POMDP model chooses the action that maximizes the long-term expected task specific utility, and while doing so, considers the value of informative actions and the effect of different object hypotheses on the completion of the task. In experiments with a physical robot arm and an RGB-D sensor, our approach outperforms an approach that only considers the most likely object composition.
Der Nightmare Effects Questionnaire (NEQ) - Pilotstudie zu ersten psychometrischen Kennwerten bei Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen

Hintergrund Alptraume kommen auch im Jugend- und Erwachsenenalter vor und konnen zum Teil massive Auswirkungen auf das Tagesbefinden der Betroffenen haben. Die wenigen Fragebogen zur Erfassung der Auswirkungen von Alptraumen erheben oft nur einen Teilbereich der moglichen Beeintrachtigungen und berucksichtigen nur das Erwachsenenalter. Fragestellung Der Nightmare Effects Questionnaire (NEQ) wurde entwickelt, um die Lucke an fehlenden umfassenden Messinstrumenten zur Erfassung von Alptraumauswirkungen auf das Tagesbefinden von Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen zu schliesen. Material und Methoden Der NEQ ist in zwei Abschnitte unterteilt. Der erste Abschnitt erfasst anhand von sechs Fragen die Haufigkeit verschiedener Traumarten. Im zweiten Abschnitt wird durch 35 Items die Tagesbeeintrachtigung durch Alptraume erfasst. 382 Teilnehmer (14–24 Jahre) fullten den NEQ vollstandig aus, und mit den Daten von 73 Probanden mit regelmasigen Alptraumen wurden die psychometrischen Daten des NEQ gepruft. Ergebnisse Mithilfe einer Hauptkomponentenanalyse wurde die Faktorenstruktur des NEQ gepruft. Es ergaben sich folgende sechs Faktoren: 1) Emotionsregulation, 2) Stress und Aggressivitat, 3) Depression, 4) Aufmerksamkeit/Konzentration, 5) Angst, 6) Hyperaktivitat. Die Reliabilitat der Gesamtskala lag im sehr guten Bereich mit α = 0,929. Diskussion Der NEQ weist eine hohe Reliabilitat auf und kann damit als ein gut einsetzbares Instrument zu Erfassung der Tagesbeeintrachtigungen durch Albtraume bei Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen angesehen werden. Er ist somit gut in Forschung und Praxis einsetzbar.
Effects of chronic kidney disease and post-angiographic acute kidney injury on long-term prognosis after coronary artery angiography.

BACKGROUND Both chronic kidney disease (CKD) and post-angiographic acute kidney injury (AKI) are regarded as risks factors for long-term mortality after coronary angiography. On the other hand, acute haemodynamic disturbances requiring haemodynamic support have a strong impact on both the incidence of AKI and on prognosis after coronary angiography. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of CKD and AKI on long-term prognosis after coronary angiography among hospital survivors and to determine relationships with haemodynamic variables. METHODS We studied 2439 patients who underwent coronary angiography or percutaneous coronary intervention. Relationships between both CKD and AKI and mortality or cardiovascular diseases were measured using unadjusted and adjusted Cox models for case-mix and laboratory variables. RESULTS Multivariable Cox regression analysis identified CKD as an independent predictor of long-term mortality [adjusted hazard ratio (AHR) 1.51; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.07-2.13] and composite end points (AHR 1.72; 95% CI 1.40-2.11). Lower estimated glomerular filtration ratio levels below 50 mL/min/1.73 m(2) were significantly associated with mortality after adjustments. A similar association was found even in haemodynamically stable patients. AKI was also a predictor of long-term composite end points (AHR 1.64; 95% CI 1.09-2.46); however, its impact was attenuated in haemodynamically stable patients. CONCLUSIONS Among hospital survivors, CKD is an independent predictor for both long-term mortality and composite end points, regardless of haemodynamic conditions. AKI is also a predictor of long-term prognosis; however, its impact may be attenuated in haemodynamically stable hospital survivors.
AIRS/AMSU/HSB on the Aqua mission: design, science objectives, data products, and processing systems

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU), and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB) form an integrated cross-track scanning temperature and humidity sounding system on the Aqua satellite of the Earth Observing System (EOS). AIRS is an infrared spectrometer/radiometer that covers the 3.7-15.4-/spl mu/m spectral range with 2378 spectral channels. AMSU is a 15-channel microwave radiometer operating between 23 and 89 GHz. HSB is a four-channel microwave radiometer that makes measurements between 150 and 190 GHz. In addition to supporting the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's interest in process study and climate research, AIRS is the first hyperspectral infrared radiometer designed to support the operational requirements for medium-range weather forecasting of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and other numerical weather forecasting centers. AIRS, together with the AMSU and HSB microwave radiometers, will achieve global retrieval accuracy of better than 1 K in the lower troposphere under clear and partly cloudy conditions. This paper presents an overview of the science objectives, AIRS/AMSU/HSB data products, retrieval algorithms, and the ground-data processing concepts. The EOS Aqua was launched on May 4, 2002 from Vandenberg AFB, CA, into a 705-km-high, sun-synchronous orbit. Based on the excellent radiometric and spectral performance demonstrated by AIRS during prelaunch testing, which has by now been verified during on-orbit testing, we expect the assimilation of AIRS data into the numerical weather forecast to result in significant forecast range and reliability improvements.
A Locality Correlation Discriminant with Preserving Embedded Neighborhood for Face Recognition ⋆

This paper proposes a locality correlation discriminant with neighborhood preserving embedding for face recognition, which considers both the locality correlation and manifold structure of the training data. A new locality correlation preserving within-class scatter matrix is defined, which not only contains the locality preserving information but also contains the neighbor correlation information, and defines a novel objective function to learn the manifold structure of the data in a low-dimensional space. Since the obtained manifold structure takes consideration of the local neighbor correlation information and the discriminant information, it might be more accurate for characterizing the feature of face images. Experiments conducted on Yale and ORL database indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Mobile Computation Offloading : a Context-driven Approach

Mobile computation offloading means transfer of execution of mobile software computation outside of the actual device. In this paper, we use a context-driven approach to analyse and design offloading systems. We conduct a literature survey of the types of offloading, supportive architectural models and existing frameworks to propose taxonomies of mobile offloading from viewpoints of an overall computation system and mobile software architecture. Moreover, we propose offloading into a local network, calling this local context offloading. The idea is to minimise network distance to maintain lower latency and higher bitrates, which have an effect to the power consumption in data communications. In addition, our proposal attempts to overcome challenges of scarce Internet connectivity and make good use of collaboration with nearby devices. The main focus remains on the context-awareness. This paper is a step towards a framework that will hide the underlying technology in such dynamic computation environment.
Concealed Data Aggregation for Reverse Multicast Traffic in Sensor Networks: Encryption, Key Distribution, and Routing Adaptation

Routing in wireless sensor networks is different from that in commonsense mobile ad-hoc networks. It mainly needs to support reverse multicast traffic to one particular destination in a multihop manner. For such a communication pattern, end-to-end encryption is a challenging problem. To save the overall energy resources of the network, sensed data needs to be consolidated and aggregated on its way to the final destination. We present an approach that 1) conceals sensed data end-to-end by 2) still providing efficient and flexible in-network data aggregation. The aggregating intermediate nodes are not required to operate on the sensed plaintext data. We apply a particular class of encryption transformations and discuss techniques for computing the aggregation functions "average" and "movement detection. " We show that the approach is feasible for the class of "going down" routing protocols. We consider the risk of corrupted sensor nodes by proposing a key predistribution algorithm that limits an attacker's gain and show how key predistribution and a key-ID sensitive "going down" routing protocol help increase the robustness and reliability of the connected backbone
NOTCH1 signaling contributes to cell growth, anti-apoptosis and metastasis in salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma

Background: Numerous studies have reported both the tumor-suppressive and oncogenic roles of the Notch pathway, indicating that Notch activity regulates tumor biology in a complex, context-dependent manner. The aim of the present study was to identify the role of NOTCH1 in the cell growth and metastasis of SACC. Methods: We analyzed the expression of NOTCH1 in clinical SACC samples using immunohistochemical staining. We silenced the expression of NOTCH1 and overexpressed activated NOTCH1 to elucidate the effects of NOTCH1 on proliferation, migration and invasion. NOTCH1 target genes were validated by real-time PCR. Results: Our results showed that NOTCH1 was upregulated in SACC tissues when compared with normal tissues, and this upregulation was further enhanced in SACC tissues with metastasis and recurrence when compared with SACC tissues without metastasis. Overexpression of NOTCH1 in SACC cells promoted cell growth, migration and invasion, and knockdown of NOTCH1 inhibited cell proliferation in vitro and tumorigenicity in vivo by inducing cell apoptosis. Conclusions:The results of this study suggest that NOTCH1 plays a key role in the cell growth, anti-apoptosis, and metastasis of SACC. NOTCH1 inhibitors might therefore have potential therapeutic applications in treating SACC patients by inhibiting cancer cell growth and metastasis.
Sudden switching in two-state systems

Analytic solutions are developed for two-state systems (e.g. qubits) strongly perturbed by a series of rapidly changing pulses, called ‘kicks’. The evolution matrix may be expressed as a time-ordered product of evolution matrices for single kicks. Single, double and triple kicks are explicitly considered, and the onset of observability of time ordering is examined. The effects of different order of kicks on the dynamics of the system are studied and compared with effects of time ordering in general. To determine the range of validity of this approach, the effect of using pulses of finite widths for 2s–2p transitions in atomic hydrogen is examined numerically.
Air-ground vehicle detection using local feature learning and saliency region detection

Moving vehicle detection is very important for urban traffic surveillance and situational awareness on the battlefield. Algorithms with cascade structure like Adaboost are booming in the recent decade, and successful in realtime application. However, most of them use a sliding window protocol on multi-scale images which involves heavy computing. Therefore, they are only suitable for simple feature. In this paper, a biologically inspired method is proposed. We learn patch-based features for vehicle detection by unsupervised learning, and then employ a visual saliency step after feature extraction. Instead of sliding window, a candidate region is sent to classifier only if its features are “salient” on whole image. As the number of candidate regions decreases dramatically, it allow us to utilize complex feature to increase description ability. Experimental result indicates less computational expense and good performance.
When trainees reach competency in performing endoscopic ultrasound: a systematic review

Abstract Background/Study aim The American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) recommends that trainees complete 150 endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) procedures before assessing competency. However, this recommendation is largely based on limited evidence and expert opinion. With new evidence suggesting that this historical threshold is underestimating training requirements, we evaluated the learning curve for achieving competency in EUS. Patients/Materials and methods Two investigators independently searched MEDLINE for full-text citations assessing the learning curve for achieving competency in EUS in the period 1946 to 25 March 2016. A learning curve was defined as either a tabulated or graphic representation of competency as a function of increasing EUS experience. Results Eight studies assessing 28 trainees and 7051 EUS procedures were included. When stratifying studies based on procedural indication: three studies assessed competency in evaluating mucosal lesions, three studies assessed competency in EUS fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA), and two studies assessed comprehensive competency. Among studies assessing mucosal lesion T-staging accuracy, competency was achieved by 65 to 231 procedures. Among studies assessing EUS-FNA, competency was achieved by 30 to 40 procedures. Among the two studies assessing comprehensive competency in EUS, competency was not achieved in either study across all trainees. Only four of 17 trainees reached competency by 225 to 295 EUS procedures. Conclusion As EUS competency assessment has evolved to more closely reflect independent clinical practice, the number of procedures required to achieve competency has risen well above ASGE recommendations. Advanced endoscopy training programs and specialty societies need to re-assess the structure of EUS training.