Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genomic Alterations in Primary Gastric Adenocarcinomas Correlate with Clinicopathological Characteristics and Survival

Background & aims: Pathogenesis of gastric cancer is driven by an accumulation of genetic changes that to a large extent occur at the chromosomal level. In order to investigate the patterns of chromosomal aberrations in gastric carcinomas, we performed genome‐wide microarray based comparative genomic hybridisation (microarray CGH). With this recently developed technique chromosomal aberrations can be studied with high resolution and sensitivity. Methods: Array CGH was applied to a series of 35 gastric adenocarcinomas using a genome‐wide scanning array with 2275 BAC and P1 clones spotted in triplicate. Each clone contains at least one STS for linkage to the sequence of the human genome. These arrays provide an average resolution of 1.4 Mb across the genome. DNA copy number changes were correlated with clinicopathological tumour characteristics as well as survival. Results: All thirty‐five cancers showed chromosomal aberrations and 16 of the 35 tumours showed one or more amplifications. The most frequent aberrations are gains of 8q24.2, 8q24.1, 20q13.12, 20q13.2, 7p11.2, 1q32.3, 8p23.1–p23.3, losses of 5q14.1, 18q22.1, 19p13.12–p13.3, 9p21.3–p24.3, 17p13.1–p13.3, 13q31.1, 16q22.1, 21q21.3, and amplifications of 7q21–q22, and 12q14.1–q21.1. These aberrations were correlated to clinicopathological characteristics and survival. Gain of 1q32.3 was significantly correlated with lymph node status (p=0.007). Tumours with loss of 18q22.1, as well as tumours with amplifications were associated with poor survival (p=0.02, both). Conclusions: Microarray CGH has revealed several chromosomal regions that have not been described before in gastric cancer at this frequency and resolution, such as amplification of at 7q21–q22 and 12q14.1–q21.1, as well gains at 1q32.3, 7p11.2, and losses at 13q13.1. Interestingly, gain of 1q32.3 and loss of 18q22.1 are associated with a bad prognosis indicating that these regions could harbour gene(s) that may determine aggressive tumour behaviour and poor clinical outcome.
Early surgery in patients with infective endocarditis: a propensity score analysis.

BACKGROUND An accurate assessment of the predictors of long-term mortality in patients with infective endocarditis is not possible using retrospective data because of inherent treatment biases and predictable imbalances in the distribution of prognostic factors. Largely because of these limitations, the role of surgery in long-term survival has not been adequately studied. METHODS Data were collected prospectively from 426 patients with infective endocarditis. Variables associated with surgery in patients who did not have intracardiac devices who had left-side-associated valvular infections were determined using multivariable analysis. Propensity scores were then assigned to each patient based on the likelihood of undergoing surgery. Using individual propensity scores, 51 patients who received medical and surgical treatment were matched with 51 patients who received medical treatment only. RESULTS The following factors were statistically associated with surgical therapy: age, transfer from an outside hospital, evidence of infective endocarditis on physical examination, the presence of infection with staphylococci, congestive heart failure, intracardiac abscess, and undergoing hemodialysis without a chronic catheter. After adjusting for surgical selection bias by propensity score matching, regression analysis of the matched cohorts revealed that surgery was associated with decreased mortality (hazard ratio, 0.27; 95% confidence interval, 0.13-0.55). A history of diabetes mellitus (hazard ratio, 4.81; 95% confidence interval, 2.41-9.62), the presence of chronic intravenous catheters at the beginning of the episode (hazard ratio, 2.65; 95% confidence interval, 1.31-5.33), and paravalvular complications (hazard ratio, 2.16; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-4.44) were independently associated with increased mortality. CONCLUSIONS Differences between clinical characteristics of patients with infective endocarditis who receive medical therapy versus patients who receive surgical and medical therapy are paramount. After controlling for inherent treatment selection bias and imbalances in prognostic factors using propensity score methodology, risk factors associated with increased long-term mortality included diabetes mellitus, the presence of a chronic catheter at the onset of infection, and paravalvular complications. In contrast, surgical therapy was associated with a significant long-term survival benefit.
Co-design by parallel prototyping: optical-flow detection case study

Current OF routines have achieved greater accuracy over larger speeds by improvements in implementation. Unfortunately, the improvements require the processing of more image frames or larger spatial regions. General-purpose (gp) multicomputers can be deployed to reduce the timings recorded on workstations. The four methods parallelised herein are not unusual amongst OF methods in being amenable to data-farming. Parallelising a number of routines in a systematic manner is possible if a generalised framework is available such as is provided by the PPF methodology and knowledge of the common structure to OF methods. The advantage of parallel pipelines may be that independent stages of the pipeline can at a later time be transferred to more suitable hardware. (13 pages)
Interpolation approximation of voltage stability constrained opf (vscopf) for reactive power planning

Reactive power planning (RPP), or Var planning, is to identify the optimal size and location of reactive power sources. In this paper, first, the previous work using least square method to simplify the voltage stability constrained OPF (VSCOPF) model for RPP is presented. Then, this paper presents a new model simplification solution using interpolation. The interpolation approach can be easily applied to a piecewise formulation while preserving the continuity at boundary points, which cannot be easily achieved by previous works like the least square method. The proposed interpolation approach is numerically tested and compared with the least square approach. It is concluded that interpolation is an improved model simplification approach for RPP.
Contribution of CFTR to Alveolar Fluid Clearance by Lipoxin A4 via PI3K/Akt Pathway in LPS-Induced Acute Lung Injury

The lipoxins are the first proresolution mediators to be recognized and described as the endogenous “braking signals” for inflammation. We evaluated the anti-inflammatory and proresolution bioactions of lipoxin A4 in our lipopolysaccharide (LPS-)induced lung injury model. We demonstrated that lipoxin A4 significantly improved histology of rat lungs and inhibited IL-6 and TNF-α in LPS-induced lung injury. In addition, lipoxin A4 increased alveolar fluid clearance (AFC) and the effect of lipoxin A4 on AFC was abolished by CFTRinh-172 (a specific inhibitor of CFTR). Moreover, lipoxin A4 could increase cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein expression in vitro and in vivo. In rat primary alveolar type II (ATII) cells, LPS decreased CFTR protein expression via activation of PI3K/Akt, and lipoxin A4 suppressed LPS-stimulated phosphorylation of Akt. These results showed that lipoxin A4 enhanced CFTR protein expression and increased AFC via PI3K/Akt pathway. Thus, lipoxin A4 may provide a potential therapeutic approach for acute lung injury.
Research in International Business and Finance the Value Relevance of Risk Disclosure in Annual Reports: Evidence from Mena Emerging Markets

JEL classification: G15 G32 G170 M41 Keywords: Risk disclosure Value relevance Future earnings Proprietary costs MENA emerging markets a b s t r a c t Our paper aims to examine whether voluntary risk disclosure in the annual report contains value-relevant information for investors to predict future earnings. We used a large-scale sample firms from MENA emerging markets. Our sample includes 809 year-observations for the 3-year period, 2007–2009. Our study offers two significant contributions. First, we found a positive relationship between voluntary risk information and the market's ability to anticipate 2-years ahead future earnings change. The positive association provides us with the first empirical evidence of the usefulness of risk disclosure in annual reports. Second, we found that the level of proprietary costs tends to moderate the perceived relevance of risk information, thereby making investors rely on another source of information in forecasting future earnings change.
A new density based clustering algorithm for Binary Data sets

Binary Data clustering finds tremendous applications in fault analysis of machineries, document classification, image retrievals and analysis, medical diagnosis of diseases etc. Accurate clustering of binary databases provides numerous help to develop accurate designs of above systems. In this manuscript a density based clustering algorithm is proposed to effectively cluster binary datasets. The proposed algorithm automatically determines the number of clusters based upon the density of data present in a region. The number of clusters evolve during the clustering process due to merging of several smaller clusters. Simulation studies were carried out on two synthetic datasets and it is observed that the proposed algorithm can effectively clusters both correlated and random binary datasets.
A Scheduling Approach to Parallel Harmonic Balance Simulation

Rather than approach the parallelization of the harmonic balance simulation method numerically, a novel scheduling-oriented approach is described. The technique leverages circuit substructure to expose potential parallelism in the form of a directed, acyclic graph (dag) of computations. This dag is then allocated and scheduled using various linear clustering techniques. The result is a highly scalable and efficient approach to harmonic balance simulation. Two large examples, one from the integrated circuit regime and another from the communication regime, executed on three different parallel computers are used to demonstrate the efficacy of the approach. Published in 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
GPOF Registration Based Multi-frame Image Super-Resolution Reconstruction

A robust multi-frame approach of producing a high resolution (HR) image from a sequence of low-resolution (LR), blurred and noisy images is the purpose of the paper. In the proposed approach, focus is specially on the motion model of Gaussian Pyramid Optical Flow (GPOF) registration which achieves the sub-pixel precision and enables large pixel motions, while keeping the size of the integration window relatively small. The Median “Shift and Add” idea is also introduced to initialize the HR image value in the iterative steps for the optimization of the objective function, when the motions between LR frames are pure translations and the blur is space invariant. Motion estimation is demanding field among researchers. The most general and challenging version of motion estimation is to compute an independent estimate of motion at each pixel, which is generally known as optical or optic flow. In this paper we tackle the correct estimation of the motion vectors by consistently estimating the optical flow across multiple images. In further work consistency will be achieved by calculating the sum of these frames for Gradient Regularization and Gradient back Projection which is subtracted iteratively from the estimated HR image. The method of steepest descent will be used for the minimization of the objective function. The proposed algorithm is tested on standard test vectors.
Spatial Data Management – Development of e-Learning Modules –

SUMMARY E-learning is gaining more and more importance in GI science. One key subject of GI education is spatial data management. The development and employment of courses about spatial data management are one of the central topics of the new e-learning project “FerGI”. In this paper, we present the conceptional design and the didactical methods for developing such modules. One important objective is the tight connection between theory lessons on the one hand and exercises on the other hand. This requires the development of suitable instruments: A spatial SQL tool is presented as an example that visualizes the results of spatial queries formulated by the students.
Organic and acquisitive employment growth : re-examining,testing and extending Penrose's Growth Theory.

Edith Penrose’s theory of firm growth postulates that a firm’s current growth rate will be influenced by the adjustment costs of, and changes to a firm’s productive opportunity set arising from, previous growth. Although she explicitly considered the impact of previous organic growth on current organic growth, she was largely silent about the impact of previous acquisitive growth. In this paper we extend Penrose’s work to examine that the relative impact of organic and acquisitive growth on the adjustment costs and productive opportunity set of the firm. Employing a panel of commercially active enterprises in Sweden over a 10 year period our results suggest the following. First, previous organic growth acts as a constraint on current organic growth. Second, previous acquisitive growth has a positive effect on current organic growth. We conclude that organic growth and acquisitive growth constitute two distinct strategic options facing the firm, which have a differential impact on the future organic growth of the firm.
ESTABLISHING WARM-SEASON GRASSES AND FORBS USING HERBICIDES AND MOWING

The objective of this study was to provide a preliminary assess­ ment of the use of selected herbicides in establishing a diverse stand of prairie grasses and forbs. An upland and a lowland site in eastern Nebraska, consisting of well-drained, fine-silty clay, loess-derived soils, were seeded with 23 native prairie grass and forb species and subsequently mowed or treated at rates of 0.6, 1.1, 1.7, and 2.2 kg/ha with atrazine (6-chloro-N­ ethyl-N' -(l-methylethyl)-l ,3,S-triazine-2,4-diamine) or 2,4-0 (2,4-dich­ lorophenoxyacetic acid). Treatments were applied at one and two-year intervals. Canopy cover in unreplicated treatment areas (12 x 30 m) was evaluated in ten randomly located plots (O.S x 1.0 m). In the lowland, four species of seeded forbs were established only in mulch-mowed plots. In the upland, the number of successfully established, seeded forb species was greatest in the control plot (9 species). While forb establishment was not maximized with herbicide use, such use did contribute to the rapid establishment of some warm-season grasses such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), 77% cover, and eastern gammagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides (L.) L. ), 21 % cover, in the lowland and blue gram a (Bouteloua gracilis (H.B.K.) Lag. ex Griffiths), 11 % cover with 2,4-0, and little bluestem (Andropogon scoparius Michx.), 60% cover with atrazine. Comparisons of fall total standing crop biomass 0.11 kg/m2 for lowlands and 0.47 kg/ m2 for uplands) and seedling establishment suggested that high standing crop biomass, regardless of species composition, was likely to affect the establishment of a diverse stand of grasses and forbs. Where stand diversity is the primary objective, methods that prevent high biomass accumulations, particularly the first year or two, will be most successful.
Moderate Spectral Resolution Radiative Transfer Modeling Based on Modified Correlated-k Method

A new set of high spectral resolution sensors to monitor the variations of cloud and atmospheric properties have been developed and are starting to be deployed either in space or on the ground. The development of improved retrieval algorithms and the analysis of these new data sets require rapid radiative transfer models that have commensurate spectral resolution. Although a number of radiative transfer models are available, user-friendly, accurate, high resolution spectral models that can be used to develop atmospheric, cloud and aerosol retrieval methodologies are missing. This paper describes SBDART-MOD, a new radiative transfer model covering from the visible to the infrared part of the spectrum that could serve as an alternative intermediary standard to the line-by-line models when repeated sensitivity and validation computations are necessary.
Presurgical EEG-fMRI in a complex clinical case with seizure recurrence after epilepsy surgery

Epilepsy surgery has improved over the last decade, but non-seizure-free outcome remains at 10%–40% in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and 40%–60% in extratemporal lobe epilepsy (ETLE). This paper reports a complex multifocal case. With a normal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) result and nonlocalizing electroencephalography (EEG) findings (bilateral TLE and ETLE, with more interictal epileptiform discharges [IEDs] in the right frontal and temporal regions), a presurgical EEG-functional MRI (fMRI) was performed before the intraoperative intracranial EEG (icEEG) monitoring (icEEG with right hemispheric coverage). Our previous EEG-fMRI analysis results (IEDs in the left hemisphere alone) were contradictory to the EEG and icEEG findings (IEDs in the right frontal and temporal regions). Thus, the EEG-fMRI data were reanalyzed with newly identified IED onsets and different fMRI model options. The reanalyzed EEG-fMRI findings were largely concordant with those of EEG and icEEG, and the failure of our previous EEG-fMRI analysis may lie in the inaccurate identification of IEDs and wrong usage of model options. The right frontal and temporal regions were resected in surgery, and dual pathology (hippocampus sclerosis and focal cortical dysplasia in the extrahippocampal region) was found. The patient became seizure-free for 3 months, but his seizures restarted after antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) were stopped. The seizures were not well controlled after resuming AEDs. Postsurgical EEGs indicated that ictal spikes in the right frontal and temporal regions reduced, while those in the left hemisphere became prominent. This case suggested that (1) EEG-fMRI is valuable in presurgical evaluation, but requires caution; and (2) the intact seizure focus in the remaining brain may cause the non-seizure-free outcome.
Electromagnetic scattering from a dielectric cylinder buried beneath a slightly rough surface

An analytical solution is presented for the electromagnetic scattering from a dielectric circular cylinder embedded in a dielectric half-space with a slightly rough interface. The solution utilizes the spectral (plane-wave) representation of the fields and accounts for all the multiple interactions between the rough interface and the buried cylinder. First-order coefficients from the small perturbation method are used for computation of the scattered fields from the rough surface. The derivation includes both TM and TE polarizations and can be easily extended for other cylindrical buried objects (e.g., cylindrical shell, metallic cylinder). Several scattering scenarios are examined utilizing the new solution for a dielectric cylinder beneath a flat, sinusoidal, and arbitrary rough surface profile. Results indicate that the scattering pattern of a buried object below a slightly rough surface differs from the flat surface case only when the surface roughness spectrum contains a limited range of spatial frequencies. Furthermore, the illuminated area of the incident wave is seen to be a critical factor in the visibility of a buried object below a rough surface.
Dual-NAT: dynamic multipath flow scheduling for Data Center Networks

Multipath TCP (MPTCP) can significantly improve the performance of bulk data transfer in Data Center Networks (DCNs). To achieve this, an MPTCP flow wants each of its subflows to run on a different under-utilized path. Existing routing schemes fail to meet this requirement. we propose to dynamically construct disjoint paths for each MPTCP flow so as to fully utilize the path diversity of DCNs to achieve high data transfer performance. The simulations show that, compared to current practice, our scheme can increase goodputs by more than 60%.
Combined Analysis with Copy Number Variation Identifies Risk Loci in Lung Cancer

Background. Lung cancer is the most important cause of cancer mortality worldwide, but the underlying mechanisms of this disease are not fully understood. Copy number variations (CNVs) are promising genetic variations to study because of their potential effects on cancer. Methodology/Principal Findings. Here we conducted a pilot study in which we systematically analyzed the association of CNVs in two lung cancer datasets: the Environment And Genetics in Lung cancer Etiology (EAGLE) and the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial datasets. We used a preestablished association method to test the datasets separately and conducted a combined analysis to test the association accordance between the two datasets. Finally, we identified 167 risk SNP loci and 22 CNVs associated with lung cancer and linked them with recombination hotspots. Functional annotation and biological relevance analyses implied that some of our predicted risk loci were supported by other studies and might be potential candidate loci for lung cancer studies. Conclusions/Significance. Our results further emphasized the importance of copy number variations in cancer and might be a valuable complement to current genome-wide association studies on cancer.
Ninth Finance Commission s Index of Backwardness

﻿Ninth Finance Commission's Index of Backwardness N Sreedevi IN its second report, the Ninth Finance Commission (NFC) has adopted the Composite Index of Backwardness' (CIB) as one of the criteria for the 'horizontal' distribution of the shareable net proceeds with the weightage given to the index being 11,25 per cent in respect of income tax and 12.5 per cent in respect of union excise duties. This criterion is based on a combination of: (j) population of scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST) in each state, and (ii) number of agricultural labourers (AgL) in each state, This criterion, as compiled by NFC, can be written in the form:
The impact of income support programs on labour market behaviour in Canada following job separation

Employment insurance (EI) and social assistance (SA) represent two key income support programs in Canada. The impact of these programs on labour market behaviour has been well documented in the literature. There is little analysis, however, of the nature of the interface between the programs and their overall impact on labour market outcomes. In this paper we use the 1997 Canadian Out of Employment Panel dataset to examine labour market behaviour for a set of individuals following the loss of employment. A generalized transition probability model is estimated that identifies the use of both income support programs and employment patterns following the loss of a job. The approach allows labour market behaviour to be simulated under a variety of policy scenarios. Key results from the analysis indicate that reductions in the generosity of SA results in lower use of both income support programs. Conversely, if the generosity of the EI program is curtailed this results in greater use of the SA program. Further, changes that make establishing EI eligibility more onerous have a more pronounced impact on the use of the SA program than changes that reduce weeks of EI entitlement given that EI eligibility has already been established. These results have important policy implications in an environment where responsibility for the programs is shared by different levels of government.