Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery Post-operative Outcomes of CABG Patients Given Blood Transfusion Based on Society of Thoracic Surgeons Guidelines on Blood Transfusion

Background --The worldwide practice in cardiac surgery regarding blood transfusion is towards a more conservative approach. The aim of the present study is to compare the postoperative outcome in terms of mortality and duration of mechanical ventilation among patients undergoing first-time CABG using the STS Guidelines’ threshold in transfusion and the current practice at PHC. Methods --All adult patients aged 18-65 years undergoing elective cardiac surgery including aortocoronary bypass, heart valve replacement and correction of congenital cardiac anomaly at the Philippine Heart Center starting September 2008 until August 2009 were included in the study. Patients were randomized to Group 1, Restricted group and Group 2, Liberal group. Decisions regarding intraoperative and post-operative blood transfusion for the Liberal group were made by the attending surgeon and anesthesiologist. For the Restricted Group, decisions on blood transfusion were based on the STS Guidelines that is packed red cells will only be transfused for hemoglobin values less than 7 gm/dl. Postoperative outcome in terms of duration of mechanical ventilation and mortality were evaluated. Results --A total of 71 patients were enrolled in the study. Thirty-four were randomly assigned to the restricted transfusion group and 37 to the liberal transfusion group. The average age of patients included in the restricted group was 44 years while patients of the liberal group had an average age of 47 years. Pre-operative factors were homogenous for both groups. Preoperative hemoglobin and hematocrit values were significantly higher for the restricted group. The amount of packed red cells transfused was significantly higher in the liberal group, 2.35 ± . 53 units, compared to the restricted group, 0.18 ± 0.75 units. (p-value = 0.00.) Comparison of mediastinal drainage revealed lesser amount in the restricted group, 132.21 ± 63.10 ml, than the liberal group, 195.27 ± 81.10 ml (p-value= 0.01). Duration of mechanical ventilation was shorter among the restricted group with only 14.7% requiring >48 hours of MV compared to 43.24% for the liberal group (p value=0.18). Mediastinal chest tubes were removed earlier in the restricted group with only 11.76% having CT >48 hours compared to 45.94% patients in the liberal group, (p value=0.00). Other outcome variables such as post-op dialysis, inotropic support >48hrs, sepsis, arrhythmia and hospital stay was not different for both groups. No mortality was recorded for both groups. Conclusion --Adherence to the STS Guideline recommendation of 7gm/dL cut-off for PRBC transfusion may benefit the patient in terms of lesser mediastinal drainage, shorter duration of mechanical ventilation and earlier removal of chest tubes. No mortality was noted for both groups. Phil Heart Center J 2012; 16(2):47-54
Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Comorbidities in Sickle Cell Anemia Patients With Vaso-occlusive Crisis

We investigated the association of sickle cell anemia (SCA) vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC) with depression, anxiety, and stress disorders among Bahraini patients and controls. This was a cross-sectional study that involved administering Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) consisting of structured depression, anxiety, and stress scales to SCA patients with (n=138) and without (n=105) VOC. Multinomial regression and correlation analysis were used in assessing the association of VOC with depression and/or anxiety and/or stress, after adjusting for other covariates. Significantly higher proportion of VOC patients was found among the severe-extremely severe anxiety (P<0.002) and stress (P=0.001) groups; the frequency of depressed patients was comparable between the 2 groups. Adjusting for age, sex, income, number of affected individuals per family, and HbS levels, mild-moderate (P=0.042; odds ratio=2.00; 95% confidence interval=1.03-3.91) and severe-extremely severe (P=0.004; odds ratio=4.43; 95% confidence interval=1.59-12.34) anxiety were independently associated with VOC. Both depression and stress were not associated with VOC after adjusting for these covariates. These results suggest a positive contribution of VOC to the increased rates of anxiety disorders among SCA patients, thereby recommending counseling SCA patients with repeated VOC for these psychologic comorbidities, in particular anxiety.
Autonomous self-deployment of wireless access networks

The deployment and configuration of wireless access networks represent an increasingly significant cost factor which will force the telecommunications industry to adopt new methodologies for network deployment and configuration. In this paper an extreme option is investigated: a self-deploying network, which is able to autonomously identify the need for changes in position and configuration of wireless access nodes and which can adapt to its environment without human interaction. The self-deployment problem is presented and the impracticalities of a globally optimal solution are discussed. Practical distributed algorithms for self-deployment and load balancing are derived that allow robust and efficient deployment of wireless access networks with a minimum of overhead communication between nodes. It is shown that self-deploying networks using the proposed algorithms are able to significantly outperform statically deployed networks in environments with dynamic user demand and provide robustness against failing nodes. In addition, it is shown that the proposed algorithms are not very sensitive to location estimate errors.
A Unified Approach to Eliminating Concurrency Bugs via Control Synthesis

Concurrency bugs threaten the safety of shared-memory multithreaded programs. The automated fixing techniques add new synchronization constructs; existing techniques may add too many synchronization constructs, sacrifice too much concurrency, or introduce deadlocks. The underlying problem is that existing techniques cannot simultaneously fix different bugs, especially different types of bugs, while restricting concurrency as little as possible. We present a unified concurrency bug avoidance approach to fix different types of bugs simultaneously. Our approach minimizes the number of synchronization constructs added while restricting concurrency as little as possible and guaranteeing that no new deadlocks are introduced. Our approach employs a unified vector representation of different types of bugs and reduces bug fixing to the well-studied problem of vector separation. Experiments on 14 real Java programs show that our solution incurs around 5% overhead, and typically incurs 6%-10% smaller overhead as compared to our previous Axis solution.
A Novel Method for the N-best Generation of Phrased-Based SMT

Phrase based statistic MT (PBSMT) is an important milestone in SMT. In the PBSMT, finding proper weights is an important issue. Currently, the MERT is widely adapted to optimize the weights of the models for various SMT approaches. For PBSMT, the N-best generation is an important factor affecting the performance of MERT according to our experimental results. In previous method on N-best generation of PBSMT, the word lattice is employed which can reserve exponential in polynomial time. However, in this method, the hypotheses which are similar to the best hypotheses probably obtain high score as well, which may further encourages the similarity of the N-best. In this paper, a novel N-best generation method is proposed to retain considerable divergence for PBSMT. According the experimental results, our method is significant better than previous widely adopted method in Moses.
Neuropathological findings and staging in dementia

Dementia is a clinical syndrome with the development of impairment in multiple cognitive functions (including memory), severe enough to interfere with activities of daily living, as the main symptom. There are a large number of disorders that can lead to dementia, and neuropathological examination after death is necessary to determine the underlying cause with certainty. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate neuropathological findings in patients with dementia and neuropathological staging of dementia disorders, the main potential gain being increased epidemiological knowledge and improved neuropathological dementia diagnostics. We could confirm the generally accepted opinion that on a neuropathological basis, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common dementia disorder, followed by vascular dementia (VaD) and mixed AD+VaD. Also, in a significant number of patients, the clinical dementia subtype diagnosis does not correspond with the neuropathological findings. Furthermore, degeneration of the nucleus locus coeruleus, often seen already macroscopically, generally indicates the diagnoses Lewy body disease (LBD) or AD among the demented, while a preserved locus coeruleus occurs mainly in VaD and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Moreover, various neuropathological staging systems for AD differ in procedure and targeted pathology, and the choice of system affects the judgement of Alzheimer pathology and hence the final diagnosis. Also, various neuropathological LBD staging systems differ in applicability and to some extent in the judgment of Lewy-related pathology. (Less)
IIT TREC-9 - Entity Based Feedback with Fusion

For TREC-9, we focused on effectiveness in the web track. The key techniques we employed were information fusion, entity-based relevance feedback, Wordnet-based query parsing and a user interface designed to assist with web-based manual queries. Our initial results are positive. For the manual task, forty of fifty queries are over the median. In the adhoc, title-only task, thirty-four of fifty queries are over the median.
Streptococcus pyogenes antigen I/II-family polypeptide AspA shows differential ligand-binding properties and mediates biofilm formation

The streptococcal antigen I/II (AgI/II)‐family polypeptides are cell wall‐anchored adhesins expressed by most indigenous oral streptococci. Proteins sharing 30–40% overall amino acid sequence similarities with AgI/II‐family proteins are also expressed by Streptococcus pyogenes. The S. pyogenes M28_Spy1325 polypeptide (designated AspA) displays an AgI/II primary structure, with alanine‐rich (A) and proline‐rich (P) repeats flanking a V region that is projected distal from the cell. In this study it is shown that AspA from serotype M28 S. pyogenes, when expressed on surrogate host Lactococcus lactis, confers binding to immobilized salivary agglutinin gp‐340. This binding was blocked by antibodies to the AspA‐VP region. In contrast, the N‐terminal region of AspA was deficient in binding fluid‐phase gp‐340, and L. lactis cells expressing AspA were not agglutinated by gp‐340. Deletion of the aspA gene from two different M28 strains of S. pyogenes abrogated their abilities to form biofilms on saliva‐coated surfaces. In each mutant strain, biofilm formation was restored by trans complementation of the aspA deletion. In addition, expression of AspA protein on the surface of L. lactis conferred biofilm‐forming ability. Taken collectively, the results provide evidence that AspA is a biofilm‐associated adhesin that may function in host colonization by S. pyogenes.
Extracellular HMGB1, a signal of tissue damage, induces mesoangioblast migration and proliferation

High mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is an abundant chromatin protein that acts as a cytokine when released in the extracellular milieu by necrotic and inflammatory cells. Here, we show that extracellular HMGB1 and its receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) induce both migration and proliferation of vessel-associated stem cells (mesoangioblasts), and thus may play a role in muscle tissue regeneration. In vitro, HMGB1 induces migration and proliferation of both adult and embryonic mesoangioblasts, and disrupts the barrier function of endothelial monolayers. In living mice, mesoangioblasts injected into the femoral artery migrate close to HMGB1-loaded heparin-Sepharose beads implanted in healthy muscle, but are unresponsive to control beads. Interestingly, α-sarcoglycan null dystrophic muscle contains elevated levels of HMGB1; however, mesoangioblasts migrate into dystrophic muscle even if their RAGE receptor is disabled. This implies that the HMGB1–RAGE interaction is sufficient, but not necessary, for mesoangioblast homing; a different pathway might coexist. Although the role of endogenous HMGB1 in the reconstruction of dystrophic muscle remains to be clarified, injected HMGB1 may be used to promote tissue regeneration.
Content-free image orientation detection using Local Binary Pattern

Image orientation detection is a basic, but important subject in image processing. It is also a difficult task because of the uncertainty of the context information of the image and the illumination. In this paper, we present a theoretically and computationally simple yet efficient content-free image orientation detection approach. The proposed approach is based on Local Binary Patterns which is recognized as gray scale and rotation invariant. By using the binary mode and the histogram computed over the overlapping region of two images, the experiments show that it can get excellent results in both artificial and real images. Furthermore, the method can be used in different images with similar contents. Through optimization, the run time of the algorithm reduces by a large amount and makes it applicable in real applications.
Making Distributed Rate Control using Lyapunov Drifts a Reality in Wireless Networks

In recent years the literature on wireless networks has been enriched by several theoretical results that have developed new mathematical frameworks for design of optimal cross-layer protocols [1]. A particularly appealing stochastic network optimization approach that yields simple distributed algorithms for dynamic scenarios is based on the use of Lyapunov drifts [2]. The Lyapunov drift based techniques described in [2] provide for distributed rate control based purely on local observations of neighborhood queues. They guarantee the stability of the system and also provide mechanisms to achieve optimization with respect to given utility functions. While attractive on theoretical grounds, to our knowledge these techniques have yet to be implemented in real wireless networks 1. One reason it has not been easy to translate the Lyapunov drift methodology from theory to practice is that it has been primarily developed under the assumption of a time-slotted system, implying a TDMA MAC. TDMA-based wireless networks are generally harder to implement due to the challenges associated with time-synchronization, particularly across multiple-hops.
Efficient Calculation of Expected Miss Ratios in the Independent Reference Model

In the independent reference model of program behavior, King’s formulas for the expected FIFO (“first-in-first-out”) and expected LRU (“least-recently-used”) miss ratios each contain an exponential number of terms (very roughly $n^{{\text{CAP}}} $, where n is the number of pages and CAP is the capacity of main memory). Hence, under the straightforward algorithms, these formulas are computationally intractable. We present an algorithm which is both efficient (there are $O(n \cdot {\text{CAP}})$ additions, multiplications, and divisions) and provably numerically stable, for calculating the expected FIFO miss ratio. In the case of LRU, we present an efficient method, based on an urn model, for obtaining an unbiased estimate of the expected LRU miss ratio (the method requires $O(n \cdot {\text{CAP}})$ additions and comparisons, and $O({\text{CAP}})$ divisions and random number generations).
Study of the Interaction Effect Between Parsley Petroselinum crispum and Cadmium on Lipid Profile, Lipid Peroxidation and Catalase Activity of Albino Mice Males' Liver and Kidney

This study was designed to investigate the effect of different cadmium concentrations on albino mice males' oxidative balance through lipid profile, malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration and catalase (CAT) activity estimation in liver and kidney. Parsley Petroselinum crispum was chosen to detect its effect as a natural antioxidant. Five groups of albino mice males (10 mice each) were treated with (0.0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 7.5) mg Cd/kg b.w. orally by using gavages needle for 60 days according to 5 days/week protocol, another five mice groups were treated with the same cadmium concentrations mentioned above and 0.1 ml of parsley Petroselinum
Bridging the computation gap between programmable processors and hardwired accelerators

New media and signal processing applications demand ever higher performance while operating within the tight power constraints of mobile devices. A range of hardware implementations is available to deliver computation with varying degrees of area and power efficiency, from general-purpose processors to application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). The tradeoff of moving towards more efficient customized solutions such as ASICs is the lack of flexibility in terms of hardware reusability and programmability. In this paper, we propose a customized semi-programmable loop accelerator architecture that exploits the efficiency gains available through high levels of customization, while maintaining sufficient flexibility to execute multiple similar loops. A customized instance of the loop accelerator architecture is generated for a particular loop and then the data and control paths are proactively generalized in an efficient manner to increase flexibility. A compiler mapping phase is then able to map other loops onto the same hardware. The efficiency of the programmable accelerator is compared with non-programmable accelerators and with the OpenRISC 1200 general purpose processor. The programmable accelerator is able to achieve up to 34x better power efficiency and 30x better area efficiency than a simple general purpose processor, while trading off as little as 2x power and area efficiency to the non-programmable accelerator.
Deriving use case diagrams from business process models

In this paper we introduce a technique to simplify requirements capture. The technique can be used to derive functional requirements, specified in the form of UML use case diagrams, from existing business process models. Because use case diagrams have to be constructed by performing interviews, and business process models usually are available in a company, use case diagrams can be produced more quickly when derived from business proces models. The use case diagrams that result from applying the technique, specify a software system that provides automated support for the original business processes. We also show how the technique was successfully evaluated in practice.
What do fat women want? An exploratory investigation of the influences of psychotherapy on the process by which fat women work toward acceptance of their size and weight

WHAT DO FAT WOMEN WANT? AN EXPLORATORY INVESTIGATION OF THE INFLUENCES OF PSYCHOTHERAPY ON THE PROCESS BY WHICH FAT WOMEN WORK TOWARD ACCEPTANCE OF THEIR SIZE AND WEIGHT SEPTEMBER 2001 ANNE M. DOWNES, B.A., LEMOYNE COLLEGE M.A., TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY M.Ed., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: John C. Carey This study explores the process by which a selected group of fat women work toward a positive acceptance of their size and weight and on the experiences and perspectives of these women as participants in psychotherapy. Research questions focused on participants' childhood, adolescent and adult experiences as large women prior to choosing to emphasize accepting, rather than changing their bodies; on the factors that influenced their decision to make that choice; and on participants' experiences as clients in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy experiences were examined to determine what role they may play in a woman’s process of working toward acceptance of size and weight. Participants were asked to describe therapist characteristics necessary to their being effective with clients who are fat women. v 1 In-depth phenomenological interviewing served as the primary method of data collection. Each participant was interviewed twice individually in sessions lasting from ninety minutes to two hours each. The study employed reflective and interactive components. Participants were given copies of the transcriptions of their individual interviews for review and comment and invited to take part in a focus group interview. The data are organized into four areas: childhood and family of origin, adulthood and independence, working toward acceptance of size and weight, and experiences in therapy. Findings indicate that the negative sequalae of participants a) being shamed for their size and b) blamed for not controlling their size, continued well into adulthood. Adult experiences of prejudice and discrimination based on size confirmed and recapitulated attributions of unattractiveness and inadequacy. The journey toward acceptance of size and weight is life-long, non¬ linear and involves embracing an alternative paradigm of assumptions concerning the origins of fatness, prevailing cultural standards of beauty, and the tendency to regard fatness as an indicator of compromised physical and mental health. In order to conduct effective therapy with fat women, psychotherapists need to understand the biological bases of fatness and the exacerbating effects of dieting; examine their own biases concerning size and weight; educate themselves regarding issues that fat women face; and remain aware of dynamic considerations specific to conducting therapy with fat
Implementation of Malware Analysis using Static and Dynamic Analysis Method

Malware analysis is a process to perform analysis of malware and how to study the components and behavior of malware. On this paper it will use two methods of malware analysis, static analysis and dynamic analysis. Static analysis is a method of malware analysis which done without running the malware. While dynamic analysis is a method of malware analysis which the malware is running in a secure system [7]. Malware analysis is important, since many malware at this day which is not detectable by antivirus. Now viruses are made with special ability to avoid detection from antivirus [9]. On this research we will focus on implementation of malware analysis using static analysis and dynamic analysis method. General Terms Computer Security
Hysteresis Compensation Method for Magnetoresistive Sensors Based on Single Polar Controlled Magnetic Field Pulses

This paper presents an improved hysteresis compensation method based on magnetic field pulses. The magnetic field pulses are generated by current pulses applied to a one-winding coil structure on the top of the sensor element. This configuration allows the sensor electronic to drive a magnetoresistive (MR) sensor in its magnetic saturation. Anisotropic magnetoresistance, giant magnetoresistance, and tunnel magnetoresistance current sensors are chosen for conducting experiments. The magnetic field generated by current pulses and the magnetic field generated by the current to be measured always have to be in the same direction. As a result, the output characteristic of an MR current sensor can always be kept on the negative rising and the positive falling branch of the magnetic major loop during the measurement. Thus, a defined output of the MR current sensor independent from the magnetic history for all current values can be achieved. An electronic mixed signal circuit consisting of a field-programmable gate array, an optoisolator, analog switches, and attention display converters is used to generate the current pulses and to measure the output of the current sensor. Current measurements with and without controlled magnetic field (current) pulses are compared. A hysteresis reduction to nearly 20% of the original value, by using this hysteresis compensation method, was reached.