Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What does confidence mean to people who have had a stroke? – A qualitative interview study

Objective: To explore the meaning of confidence to stroke patients after stroke in order to inform the development of a measurement tool. Design: Qualitative interview study using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Methods: Ten stroke survivors were purposively selected from those participating in a multi-centre randomised trial of outdoor mobility rehabilitation. Interviews about confidence were conducted in participants’ homes, audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Results: Six themes emerged from the analysis. These were loss of identity, fear, social confidence, role confidence, mastering skill and attitudes and beliefs. Loss of identity was particularly evident in the early stages of stroke recovery. Fear was a barrier to regaining confidence and was associated with avoidance behaviours. Lack of social confidence was a common problem which appeared difficult to resolve. Life roles motivated participants to re-engage in daily life activities. Personal attitudes and beliefs, combined with the attitudes of significant others, contributed to personal feelings of competence. Conclusion: This study provides a coherent definition of the meaning of confidence through the experiences of stroke survivors. Being successful in gradually re-engaging in activities, including social activities and life roles helped to establish a positive self-belief. The influence of others, such as family and friends reinforce self-beliefs. Confidence and self-efficacy appear to be a similar construct. However, participants in this study also identified a relationship between confidence and self-esteem. The findings indicate that all six themes need to be included in a confidence measure to encompass the meaning of confidence as described by participants with stroke.
A sensitive multidimensional method for the detection, characterization, and quantification of trace free drug species in antibody-drug conjugate samples using mass spectral detection

abstract Conjugation processes and stability studies associated with the production and shelf life of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) can result in free (non-conjugated) drug species. These free drug species can increase the risk to patients and reduce the efficacy of the ADC. Despite stringent purification steps, trace levels of free drug species may be present in formulated ADCs, reducing the therapeutic window. The reduction of sample preparation steps through the incorporation of multidimensional techniques has afforded analysts more efficient methods to assess trace drug species. Multidimensional methods coupling size-exclusion and reversed phase liquid chromatography with ultra-violet detection (SEC-RPLC/UV) have been reported, but offer limited sensitivity and can limit method optimization. The current study addresses these challenges with a multidimensional method that is specific, sensitive, and enables method control in both dimensions via coupling of an on-line solid phase extraction column to RPLC with mass spectral detection (SPE-RPLC/MS). The proposed method was evaluated using an antibody-fluorophore conjugate (AFC) as an ADC surrogate to brentuximab vedotin and its associated parent maleimide-val-cit-DSEA payload and the derived N-acetylcysteine adduct formed during the conjugation process. Assay sensitivity was found to be 2 orders more sensitive using MS detection in comparison to UV-based detection with a nominal limit of quantitation of 0.30 ng/mL (1.5 pg on-column). Free-drug species were present in an unadulterated ADC surrogate sample at concentrations below 7 ng/mL, levels not detectable by UV alone. The proposed SPE-RPLC/MS method provides a high degree of specificity and sensitivity in the assessment of trace free drug species and offers improved control over each dimension, enabling straightforward integration into existing or novel workflows.
Cereal fiber intake may reduce risk of gastric adenocarcinomas: The EPIC‐EURGAST study

Numerous case‐control studies suggest dietary fiber may reduce risk of gastric cancer, but this has not been confirmed prospectively. A previous case‐control study reported reduced risk of gastric cardia adenocarcinomas associated with cereal fiber, but not with fruit or vegetable fiber. To date, different food sources of fiber have not been examined with respect to noncardia tumors or diverse histologic sub‐types. This study prospectively examines associations between fiber from different food sources and incident gastric adenocarcinomas (GC) among more than 435,000 subjects from 10 countries participating in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study. Subjects aged 25–70 years completed dietary questionnaires in 1992–98, and were followed up for a median of 6.7 years. About 312 incident GCs were observed. The relative risk of GC was estimated based on cohort‐wide sex‐specific fiber intake quartiles using proportional hazards models to estimate hazards ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Intakes of cereal fiber, but not total, fruit or vegetable fiber, were associated with reduced GC risk [adjusted HR for the highest vs. lowest quartile of cereal fiber 0.69, 0.48–0.99]. There was a strong inverse association for diffuse [HR 0.43, 0.22–0.86], but not intestinal type [HR 0.98, 0.54–1.80] tumors. Associations for cardia vs. noncardia tumors were similar to those for overall GC, although cardia associations did not reach significance. Cereal fiber consumption may help to reduce risk of GC, particularly diffuse type tumors. Further study on different food sources of fiber in relation to GC risk is warranted to confirm these relationships. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Selecting agent hygromycin B alters expression of glucose-regulated genes in transfected Caco-2 cells

Rodolosse, Annie, Alain Barbat, Isabelle Chantret, Michel Lacasa, Edith Brot-Laroche, Alain Zweibaum, and Monique Rousset. Selecting agent hygromycin B alters expression of glucose-regulated genes in transfected Caco-2 cells. Am. J. Physiol. 274 (Gastrointest. Liver Physiol. 37): G931–G938, 1998. —Incorporation into plasmids of genes conferring resistance to aminoglycoside antibiotics such as hygromycin B is currently utilized for selection in experiments involving gene transfer in eukaryotic cells. Using a subclone of Caco-2 cells stably transfected with an episomal plasmid containing the hygromycin resistance gene, we observed that transformed cells subcultured in the presence of hygromycin B exhibit, compared with the same cells subcultured in antibiotic-free medium, a sixfold increase in the rates of glucose consumption and lactic acid production and dramatic changes, at mRNA and protein level, of the expressions of sucrase-isomaltase and hexose transporter GLUT-2, which are downregulated, contrasting with an upregulation of hexose transporter GLUT-1. This occurs without significant modifications of the differentiation status of the cells, as demonstrated by the normal expression of villin, ZO-1, dipeptidyl peptidase IV, or Na1-K1-ATPase. The plasmid copy number is, however, the same, whether or not the cells are cultured in the presence of hygromycin B. These results draw attention to the need to consider antibiotic-dependent alterations of metabolism and gene expression in transfection experiments.
Creating a statistical atlas of the cranium.

Normative data is very important for simulation procedures in craniofacial surgery. While treating e.g. a malformed skull the surgeon seeks to reconstruct its natural and harmonic shape. Atlas or normative data of the skull could support the surgeon in this effort, as it would provide a standard model of the skull which gives an idea of the natural shape. We create a standard skull by averaging regularly formed skulls in a shape space spanned by spherical harmonics. While state-of-the-art methods use landmarks to define the shape and mean shapes, this method is deterministic, i.e. it manages averaging without landmarks and it provides a complete description of the shape. In addition the shape space can be used to classify shapes to identify different types of an anatomy.
Toward self-authenticable wearable devices

Wearable devices communicate among themselves, but they also need to communicate with remote entities through the Internet in order to share information. Given the sensitivity of the information handled, authentication is needed to allow data access only to authorized parties. However, the existing authentication solutions for wearable devices are limited to scenarios where direct communication between the authenticating parties is possible. With this in mind, we propose an authentication protocol that enables secure mutual end-to-end authentication between a wearable device and any other entity such as another wearable device, a personal device (mobile phone), a remote server, or a user's application. Our design uses a point-to-point authentication protocol (end-to-end authentication) regardless of whether other intermediate devices are trusted or not. Finally, we present a security evaluation of the proposed authentication protocol.
More on RotaShield and intussusception: the role of age at the time of vaccination.

BACKGROUND RotaShield, a vaccine intended to prevent severe rotavirus diarrhea, was withdrawn in July 1999, 9 months after it became available in the United States, because of a temporal association with intussusception events that occurred in vaccinated infants. We explore here the effect of age on the risk of intussusception. METHODS We reanalyzed a case-control database of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by use of a 21-day window, to define vaccine-associated events. We obtained data on vaccine use from the National Immunization Survey and estimated the age-stratified background incidence of intussusception by use of Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project data. We combined these data to estimate how absolute risk varies with age and to model the projected population-attributable risk associated with 3 different vaccination schedules. RESULTS We found that the incidence of intussusception associated with the first dose of vaccine increased with age. Infants > or = 90 days old accounted for 80% of cases of intussusception associated with a first dose but had received only 38% of first doses. Modeling of the recommended schedule of vaccination at ages 2, 4, and 6 months projected 1 intussusception event/11,000-16,000 vaccine recipients; modeling of a 2-dose schedule beginning in the neonatal period projected 1 intussusception event/38,000-59,000 vaccine recipients. CONCLUSIONS The practice of initiating immunization after age 90 days, which we call "catch-up" vaccination, contributed disproportionately to the occurrence of intussusception associated with the use of RotaShield. A fully implemented 2-dose vaccination schedule begun during the neonatal period would lead to, at most, a 7% increase in the incidence of intussusception above the annual background incidence.
Neuroglobin-overexpressing transgenic mice are resistant to cerebral and myocardial ischemia

Neuroglobin (Ngb), a protein related to myoglobin and hemoglobin but expressed predominantly in the brain, is induced by neuronal hypoxia and cerebral ischemia and protects against hypoxic or ischemic neuronal injury. We engineered transgenic mice that overexpress murine Ngb under the control of a chicken β-actin promoter, resulting in enhanced Ngb expression in multiple cell types and multiple tissues, including brain and heart. In Ngb-overexpressing transgenic mice compared with wild-type littermates, the volume of cerebral infarcts after occlusion of the middle cerebral artery was reduced by ≈30%, and the volume of myocardial infarcts produced by occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery was reduced by ≈25%. Ngb overexpression was associated with enhanced expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase in vascular endothelial cells. These findings extend prior evidence for cytoprotection by Ngb and suggest both direct (parenchymatous) and indirect (vasomotor) protective mechanisms.
Everolimus plus octreotide long-acting repeatable in patients with advanced lung neuroendocrine tumors: analysis of the phase 3, randomized, placebo-controlled RADIANT-2 study.

BACKGROUND The incidence of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) has increased approximately fivefold since the 1980s. A similar increase in the incidence of lung NETs has been reported, but therapy has not been optimized. METHODS This exploratory subanalysis evaluated the efficacy and safety of everolimus plus octreotide long-acting repeatable (LAR) in a cohort of patients with low- to intermediate-grade advanced lung NET from the phase 3, randomized, placebo-controlled RADIANT-2 (RAD001 in Advanced Neuroendocrine Tumors) study. The primary end point was progression-free survival (PFS). Secondary end points included objective response rate, overall survival, change from baseline in biomarker levels, and safety outcomes. RESULTS Patients were randomly assigned to everolimus plus octreotide LAR (n 5 33) or placebo plus octreotide LAR (n 5 11). Median PFS was 13.63 months in the everolimus plus octreotide LAR arm compared with 5.59 months in the placebo plus octreotide LAR arm (relative risk for progression: HR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.31–1.68; P 5 .228). More patients receiving everolimus plus octreotide LAR (67%) experienced minor tumor shrinkage (not partial response as per RECIST [Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors]) than those receiving placebo plus octreotide LAR (27%). Most frequently reported adverse events (AEs) included stomatitis, rash, diarrhea, and asthenia. This was consistent with the overall RADIANT-2 trial and the safety profile of everolimus. CONCLUSIONS This exploratory subgroup analysis of the RADIANT-2 trial indicates that in patients with advanced lung NET, the addition of everolimus to octreotide LAR improves median PFS by 2.4-fold compared with placebo plus octreotide LAR. These clinically significant observations support the continued evaluation of everolimus treatment regimens in this patient population. TRIAL REGISTRY ClinicalTrials.gov; No.: NCT00412061
RAFT/RAPR and Centering: a comparison and discussion of problems related to processing complex sentences

abstract preferences underlying the frameworks share much in common, the approaches very often make the same predictions. RAFT/RAPR's focusing and pronoun resolution algorithms reflect the following underlying abstract preferences: We prefer for the CF to be something that is co-referential with an element mentioned earlier in the discourse. We prefer for the CF to be a pronoun rather than a full definite description. We use preferences for resolving pronouns and computing the CF that involve the grammatical role of the pronoun. We prefer for the CF to be the same as the last CF and the SF to be the same as the last SF. Centering shares the first two of these in common with us. But, centering prefers the local focus to stay the same and for the subject to be the local focus (which is stronger than preference 4). As noted earlier, we do not apply preference 2 without regard for the grammatical roles of the NPs and which focusing data structures they co-specify. Furthermore, centering invokes the second preference during pronoun resolution, while we invoke it only after resolving the pronouns. In addition, centering requires that the focus (Cb) realizes an element in the immediately preceding sentence, as opposed to merely preferring for the focus to be something in the immediately preceding sentence but allowing it instead to be co-referential with an element further back in the preceding text (as RAFT/RAPR does). In sum, the order in which these abstract preferences are applied differs between the two frameworks. Furthermore, as a result of (some) differences between the frameworks with respect to these preferences, resolvhlg a pronoun to have the same grammatical role as its antecedent is less important in centering than it is in RAFT/RAPR (Section 4.3). RAFT/RAPR presents possible referents for pronouns one possibility at a time, and if pragmatic, semantic, and general knowledge inferencing rejects a referent, RAFT/RAPR proposes an alternative. Centering, on the other hand, (in addition to requiring this same kind of inferencing) sometimes suggests multiple possibilities for the co-specifications of pronouns in a sentence (Walker 1989). Is pragmatic inferencing applied at this point to pick among the possible antecedents? We assume this to be the case, otherwise it is not clear how centering will choose among the multiple potential referents. Yet, assuming this is the case, centering seems to involve more complex inferencing than our approach involves; inferencing for centering must pick which antecedent is better. RAFT/RAPR only asks inferencing to confirm a co-specification. 19 19 We do not check for ambiguity of pronouns in the same way that Sidner did. However, even if we were to incorporate similar checks for ambiguity, such checks would involve using inferencing to confirm two possible co-specifications for a pronoun, while centering might require the use of inferencing to confirm more than two. Thus, the inferencing required by RAFT/RAPR would still be more limited than that required by centering. 315
Time-bound analytic tasks on large datasets through dynamic configuration of workflows

Domain experts are often untrained in big data technologies and this limits their ability to exploit the data they have available. Workflow systems hide the complexities of high-end computing and software engineering by offering pre-packaged analytic steps combined into multi-step methods commonly used by experts. A current limitation of workflow systems is that they do not take into account user deadlines: they run workflows selected by the user, but take their time to do so. This is impractical when large datasets are at stake, since users often prefer to see an answer faster even if it has lower precision or quality. In this paper, we present an extension to workflow systems that enables them to take into account user deadlines by automatically generating alternative workflow candidates and ranking them according to performance estimates. The system makes these estimates based on workflow performance models created from workflow executions, and uses semantic technologies to reason about workflow options. Possible workflow candidates are presented to the user in a compact manner, and are ranked according to their runtime estimates. We have implemented this approach in the WOOT system, which combines and extends capabilities from the WINGS semantic workflow system and the Apache OODT Object Oriented Data Technology and workflow execution system.
An Affect Control Theory of Technology.

Affect control theory is a theory of interaction that takes into account cultural meanings. Affect control research has previously considered interaction with technology, but there remains a lack of theorizing about inclusion of technology within the theory. This paper lays a foundation for an affect control theory of technology by addressing key assumptions, presenting an empirical foundation using a survey of sentiments toward technology, and analyzing those sentiments.
Structural modeling of flames for a production environment

In this paper we describe a system for animating flames. Stochastic models of flickering and buoyant diffusion provide realistic local appearance while physics-based wind fields and Kolmogorov noise add controllable motion and scale. Procedural mechanisms are developed for animating all aspects of flame behavior including moving sources, combustion spread, flickering, separation and merging, and interaction with stationary objects. At all stages in the process the emphasis is on total artistic and behavioral control while maintaining interactive animation rates. The final system is suitable for a high volume production pipeline.
Component-Based Abstraction Refinement for Timed Controller Synthesis

We present a novel technique for synthesizing controllers for distributed real-time environments with safety requirements. Our approach is an abstraction refinement extension to the on-the-fly algorithm by Cassez et al. from 2005. Based on partial compositions of some environment components, each refinement cycle constructs a sound abstraction that can be used to obtain under- and over-approximations of all valid controller implementations. This enables (1) early termination if an implementation does not exist in the over-approximation, or, if one does exist in the under-approximation, and (2) pruning of irrelevant moves in subsequent refinement cycles. In our refinement loop, the precision of the abstractions incrementally increases and converges to all specification-critical components. We implemented our approach in a prototype synthesis tool and evaluated it on an industrial benchmark. In comparison with the timed game solver UPPAAL-Tiga, our technique outperforms the nonincremental approach by an order of magnitude.
Engineering of a second-order nonlinearity in silicon-dielectric multilayers

We demonstrate a way to engineer a second-order nonlinearity (χ<sup>(2)</sup>) in silicon-dielectric multilayers via the electric-field induced second-harmonic effect. The value of χ<sup>(2)</sup> measured using the Maker fringe method is 1.2 pm/V.
Robust Minimum $\ell_{1}$-Norm Adaptive Beamformer Against Intermittent Sensor Failure and Steering Vector Error

A robust adaptive beamformer is described to mitigate against steering vector error and intermittent sensor(s) failure which exists in the form of impulsive noise in the received signal of failed sensor(s). This new beamformer iteratively minimizes the l 1 -norm of the beamformer's output, subject to a prespecified set of quadratic constraints which target on attenuating the influence caused by steering vector error. To solve the proposed optimization problem, gradient descent algorithm is adopted. The choice of the Lagrange multiplier ¿ as well as the adaptive step-size ¿(k) are derived in detail. Simulation results verify validity and advantages of the proposed algorithms over some existing methods.
The win-win solution - guaranteeing fair shares to everybody

This work is intended as a tool for securing a satisfying, even gratifying, outcome to difficult and complex negotiations. It facilitates the equitable and efficient division of a contested set of goods and the settlement of a dispute without time-consuming haggling or an expensive lawsuit. It removes the risk of one of the parties losing to a more skilled bargainer and allows both rivals to feel that they have won more than half of what was available in a dispute. Beginning wth simple fair-division techniques, the book builds towards a path-breaking procedure that gives equitable, envy-free and efficient solution to a wide range of disputes. This procedure, called "adjusted winner", can be applied broadly, from divorce to business to international disputes. Built on a simple point-allocation system, it is as easy to apply as it is to understand, and produces, in a short time, resolutions that have taken expert negotiators weeks and months to work out. The authors present a compelling system that is not only fair but also guarantees that both parties walk away with as much of the "win-win" potential as possible.