Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Focal thyroid lesions incidentally identified by integrated 18F-FDG PET/CT: clinical significance and improved characterization.

UNLABELLED In this retrospective study, we investigated whether the (18)F-FDG uptake pattern and CT findings improved the accuracy over the standardized uptake value (SUV) for differentiating benign from malignant focal thyroid lesions incidentally found on (18)F-FDG PET/CT. We also defined the prevalence of these lesions and their risk for cancer. METHODS (18)F-FDG PET/CT was performed on 1,763 subjects without a previous history of thyroid cancer from May 2003 to June 2004. Two nuclear medicine physicians and 1 radiologist interpreted PET/CT images, concentrating on the presence of focal thyroid lesions, the maximum SUV of the thyroid lesion, the pattern of background thyroid (18)F-FDG uptake, and the CT attenuation pattern of the thyroid lesion. RESULTS The prevalence of focal thyroid lesions on PET/CT was 4.0% (70/1,763). Diagnostic confirmation was done on 44 subjects by ultrasonography (US)-guided fine-needle aspiration (n = 29) or US with clinical follow-up (n = 15). Among 49 focal thyroid lesions in these 44 subjects, 18 focal thyroid lesions of 17 subjects were histologically proven to be malignant (papillary cancer in 16, metastasis from esophageal cancer in 1, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1). Therefore, the cancer risk of focal thyroid lesions was 36.7% on a lesion-by-lesion basis or 38.6% on a subject-by-subject basis. The maximum SUV of malignant thyroid lesions was significantly higher than that of benign lesions (6.7 +/- 5.5 vs. 10.7 +/- 7.8; P < 0.05). When only the maximum SUV was applied to differentiate benign from malignant focal thyroid lesions for the receiver-operating-characteristic curve analysis, the area under the curve (AUC) of PET was 0.701. All 16 focal thyroid lesions with very low attenuation or nonlocalization on CT images, or with accompanying diffusely increased thyroid (18)F-FDG uptake, were benign. When those lesions were regarded as benign lesions, irrespective of the maximum SUV, the AUC of PET/CT was significantly improved to 0.878 (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION Focal thyroid lesions incidentally found on (18)F-FDG PET/CT have a high risk of thyroid malignancy. Image interpretation that includes (18)F-FDG uptake and the CT attenuation pattern, along with the SUV, significantly improves the accuracy of PET/CT for differentiating benign from malignant focal thyroid lesions.
The Role of Synergy in Achieving Value from Business Analytics Systems

Managers rely on Business Analytics (BA) systems to gain insight from organizational data to make better decisions and compete successfully with their rivals. BA systems interact with other organisational systems and provide them with high-quality analytical and reporting tools. When the interaction between BA systems and other organizational systems is synergistic, they create greater organizational value than the sum of the value of the individual systems in isolation. This study explores the enablers and mechanisms of the synergistic interaction between BA systems and other organizational systems and how the value can be realized. A research model is proposed, which explains how BA systems synergize with other organizational systems and create organizational value. The synergistic interaction of BA systems with other organizational systems gives rise to new BA-enabled organizational systems over time. The BA-enabled organizational systems have emergent properties that have the capability to create significant organizational value. The paper concludes by calling for further empirical work to evaluate and refine the research model.
The expression of LytM is down‐regulated by RNAIII in Staphylococcus aureus

LytM is one kind of autolysin expressed in Staphylococcus aureus. It can hydrolyze peptide bond of pentaglycine, which is the component of cell wall. Until now, the regulation on the expression of LytM is still unclear. Here, we found that the level of LytM in the RNAIII mutant was increased. RNAIII is an important small regulatory RNA in S. aureus. Our further investigation revealed that RNAIII can interact with the 5′UTR of lytM mRNA and block the ribosome binding sites [RBS]. So our results identified that LytM was the new target of RNAIII. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
The Role of Advertising in Consumer Decision Making

Advertising is a form of communication intended to convince an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, information or services etc. The purchase process is a decision - making process under risk. This paper investigates the relationship between independent variables which are emotional response with attitudinal and behavioral aspect of consumer buying behavior, by tapping the responses of 110 respondents. The basic objective of this research is to assess the influence of advertising through attitudinal buying behavior of consumer (male & female) and analyze the influence of Advertising between male and female. Almost every one grows up in the world which is flooded with the mass media e.g. television, advertising, films, videos, billboards, magazines, movies, music, newspaper, and internet. Of all marketing weapons, advertising is renowned for its long lasting impact on viewer's mind, as its exposure is much broader. Advertising is a subset of promotion mix which is one of the 4P's in the marketing mix i.e. product, price, place and promotion. As a promotional strategy, advertising serves as a major tool in creating product awareness in the mind of a potential consumer to take eventual purchase decision. Advertising, sales promotion and public relations are mass-communication tools available to marketers. Advertising through all mediums influence audiences, but television is one of the strongest medium of advertising and due to its mass reach; it can influence not only the individual's attitude, behavior, life style, exposure and in the long run, even the culture of the country. The evolution of advertisement dates back into the ancient times. Societies used symbols, and pictorial signs to attract their product users. Over centuries, these elements were used for promotion of products. In the early ages, these were handmade and were produced at limited scale for promotions. Later on, this phenomenon gained strength more intensively for promotional purposes. Today's modern environment, advertisements have become one of the major sources of communicational tool between the manufacturer and the user of the products.
Efficiency of partial frequency reuse in power used depending on user's selection for cellular networks

In this paper we apply constrained optimization techniques to optimally allocate bandwidth and transmit power to the users in a cellular network. We utilize partial frequency reuse as inter-cell interference mitigation technique considering multiple users uniformly located in the cell. Efficient algorithms are proposed to select the user in the cell regions. Moreover, based on user's selection the maximization of the minimum rate is used to optimally allocate the bandwidth and power to the users. We further demonstrate by simulations that using partial frequency reuse as inter-cell interference mitigation technique is more efficient in power use than using frequency reuse-1 or frequency reuse-3.
Targeting HIV services to male migrant workers in southern Africa would not reverse generalized HIV epidemics in their home communities: a mathematical modeling analysis

Background Migrant populations such as mine workers contributed to the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. We used a mathematical model to estimate the community-wide impact of targeting treatment and prevention to male migrants. Methods We augmented an individual-based network model, EMOD-HIV v0.8, to include an age-dependent propensity for males to migrate. Migrants were exposed to HIV outside their home community, but continued to participate in HIV transmission in the community during periodic visits. Results Migrant-targeted interventions would have been transformative in the 1980s to 1990s, but post-2015 impacts were more modest. When targetable migrants comprised 2% of adult males, workplace HIV prevention averted 3.5% of community-wide infections over 20 years. Targeted treatment averted 8.5% of all-cause deaths among migrants. When migrants comprised 10% of males, workplace prevention averted 16.2% of infections in the community, one-quarter of which were among migrants. Workplace prevention and treatment acted synergistically, averting 17.1% of community infections and 11.6% of deaths among migrants. These estimates do not include prevention of secondary spread of HIV or tuberculosis at the workplace. Conclusions Though cost-effective, targeting migrants cannot collapse generalized epidemics in their home communities. Such a strategy would only have been possible prior to the early 1990s. However, migrant-targeted interventions synergize with general-population expansion of HIV services.
Compressed sensing based multi-user millimeter wave systems: How many measurements are needed?

Millimeter wave (mmWave) systems will likely employ directional beamforming with large antenna arrays at both the transmitters and receivers. Acquiring channel knowledge to design these beamformers, however, is challenging due to the large antenna arrays and small signal-to-noise ratio before beamforming. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a downlink system operation for multi-user mmWave systems based on compressed sensing channel estimation and conjugate analog beamforming. Adopting the achievable sum-rate as a performance metric, we show how many compressed sensing measurements are needed to approach the perfect channel knowledge performance. The results illustrate that the proposed algorithm requires an order of magnitude less training overhead compared with traditional lower-frequency solutions, while employing mmWave-suitable hardware. They also show that the number of measurements need to be optimized to handle the trade-off between the channel estimate quality and the training overhead.
Arterial Spin-Labeling in Routine Clinical Practice, Part 1: Technique and Artifacts

SUMMARY: The routine use of arterial spin-labeling (ASL) in a clinical population has led to the depiction of diverse brain pathologic features. Unique challenges in the acquisition, postprocessing, and analysis of cerebral blood flow (CBF) maps are encountered in such a population, and high-quality ASL CBF maps can be generated consistently with attention to quality control and with the use of a dedicated postprocessing pipeline. Familiarity with commonly encountered artifacts can help avoid pitfalls in the interpretation of CBF maps. The purpose of this review was to describe our experience with a heterogeneous collection of ASL perfusion cases with an emphasis on methodology and common artifacts encountered with the technique. In a period of 1 year, more than 3000 pulsed ASL cases were performed as a component of routine clinical brain MR evaluation at both 1.5 and 3T. These ASL studies were analyzed with respect to overall image quality and patterns of perfusion on final gray-scale DICOM images and color Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) CBF maps, and common artifacts and their impact on final image quality were categorized.
Circumvention of outer surface protein A immunity by host-adapted Borrelia burgdorferi

Outer surface protein A (OspA), which is abundantly expressed in cultured Borrelia burgdorferi, appears to be down-regulated or masked following low-dose infection, and OspA immunization did not prevent infection, dissemination, or disease development with host-adapted spirochetes. Seroconversion of mice to B. burgdorferi OspA depended on dose and viability of inoculated spirochetes. Mice inoculated with > 10(4) live spirochetes and > 10(7) heat-killed spirochetes seroconverted to OspA, but mice inoculated with fewer spirochetes did not seroconvert to OspA at 2 weeks after inoculation. Growth temperature of spirochetes was not a factor for infectious dose or seroconversion to OspA. Spirochetes grown at 30, 34, or 38 degrees C had the same median infectious dose. Growth temperature did not influence infectious dose when mice were inoculated intraperitoneally or intradermally and did not influence dose-related immunologic recognition of OspA. Mice hyperimmunized with recombinant OspA-glutathione S-transferase (GT) fusion protein or GT (controls) were challenged by syringe inoculation with 10(3) spirochetes or by transplantation of infected skin from syngenic mice infected for 2 or 8 weeks. OspA-GT-immunized mice resisted syringe challenge but developed disseminated infections following transplantation of infected skin. Identical results were obtained in mice passively immunized with hyperimmune serum to OspA-GT or GT and then challenged by syringe or infected skin transplant. The number of spirochetes in infected skin, determined by quantitative PCR directed toward both plasmid and genomic targets, was less than the syringe challenge dose.
Do Developers Make Unbiased Decisions? - The Effect of Mindfulness and Not-Invented-Here Bias on the Adoption of Software Components

Software reuse can lower costs and increase the quality of software development. Despite a large body of research focused on technical and organisational factors, there is still limited research on the software developers’ perspective regarding software component reuse. Therefore, this paper investigates the developers’ adoption intention to use existing software components. Information systems adoption research has extensively focused on the technological aspects and less on the individual factors. However, studying these individual differences is important, as research has shown that individuals do not always behave according to rational assumptions. This study analyses the adoption of software components based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and extends the research model by integrating the not-invented-here bias and the concept of mindfulness to account for individual differences. An empirical study with 142 software developers was conducted to empirically validate the research model. The results show that performance expectancy, social influence and notinvented here bias play an important role in the developers’ decision to adopt software components. Furthermore, findings show that a mindfulness state has a negative influence on the not-invented-here bias and it directly affects the intention to adopt existing software components.
Impression Formation and Modifiability: Testing a Theoretical Model

This study proposed and tested a developmental model of impression formation based on observed behavior, prior expectancies, and additional incongruent information. Participants were 51 kindergartners, 53 second graders, and 104 college students who provided trait and liking judgments after watching a child actor engage in behaviors from three behavioral dimensions. Reaction times of judgments were also measured. Results showed that all age groups made dispositional attributions for all three presented traits. Nevertheless, young children had some difficulty conceiving of others as possessing both positive and negative attributes and provided less negative judgments. Prior expectancy strengthened judgments of the expected trait but did not suppress encoding of other traits. Judgments of likability were most strongly influenced by prosocial-antisocial behavior. Unlike prosocial and smart behavior, shyness influenced only adults' liking of the actor. Additional incongruent behaviors produced a substantial modification of impressions in all groups except for kindergartners who held positive impressions.
Eccentricity biases of object categories are evident in visual working memory

In high-order object areas, face-selective areas prefer centrally presented stimuli, whereas building-selective areas prefer peripherally presented stimuli (Levy et al., 2001). We investigated whether this eccentricity bias was also evident in visual working memory. In Experiment 1, we found that working memory performance for faces decreased towards the periphery while the performance for buildings remained unchanged across different eccentricities. To rule out the possibility that lower level features influence these results, we manipulated the spatial frequency of faces and buildings (Experiment 2) and the spatial layout information of the buildings (Experiment 3). In both of the experiments, we replicated the results of Experiment 1, even when these lower level features of stimuli were controlled. Consistent with previous findings, the current results suggest that each object category is processed in a different manner depending on the eccentricity. This eccentricity bias is likely the result of how the high-order object areas represent different object categories.
IVF/ICSI outcome and serum LH concentration on day 1 of ovarian stimulation with recombinant FSH under pituitary suppression.

BACKGROUND Down-regulation with GnRH agonist has been suggested to result in a profound suppression of LH bioactivity, reduced estradiol synthesis, and thus impaired IVF and pregnancy outcome. The aims of this study were: (i) to assess the usefulness of serum LH measurement on stimulation day 1 as a predictor of ovarian response, conception and pregnancy outcome in patients treated with long-term down-regulation with GnRH agonist and recombinant FSH, and (ii) to define the best threshold LH value, if any, to discriminate between women with different outcomes of IVF. METHODS Records of 2625 cycles in 1652 infertile women undergoing IVF (n = 1856) and/or ICSI (n = 769) treatment were reviewed. RESULTS The range of LH concentrations on stimulation day 1 overlapped among non-conception cycles, conception cycles, ongoing pregnancies and early pregnancy losses. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that serum LH concentrations on stimulation day 1 were unable to discriminate between conception and non-conception cycles (AUC(ROC) = 0.51; 95% CI: 0.49-0.54) or ongoing pregnancies versus early pregnancy loss groups (AUC(ROC) = 0.52; 95% CI: 0.47-0.57). Stratification for various low serum levels of LH did not reveal significant differences with respect to conception or pregnancy outcome among different LH levels on stimulation day 1. CONCLUSIONS Serum LH concentration on stimulation day 1 cannot predict ovarian response, conception and pregnancy outcome in women receiving long-term down-regulation during assisted reproduction treatment.
Expert Blogs and Consumer Perceptions of Competing Brands

Social media-based expert blogs are a crucial and credible online information source for consumers, yet little is known about the role of expert blogs for general consumer brand perceptions that bestow long-term value for the firm. On the basis of a novel dataset with 7,871 brand-day observations of over 131,000 expert blogs on major brands in the PC industry, this study reveals how expert blogs may act as a quality signal leading general consumers’ perceptions of rival brands. Our analyses reveal three key insights: (1) Expert blog sentiments and volume on a focal brand have a positive relationship with consumer perceptions of the focal brand but a negative relationship with those of its competing brands. (2) The focal brand’s blogs have a reinforcing relationship with its subsequent blogs and a cannibalistic relationship with competitors’ subsequent blogs. (3) Brand position (leading versus non-leading in the market) plays a nontrivial role in these competitive, dynamic relationships. For example, a 1 percent unexpected increase in Acer’s expert blog sentiment would be associated with a 1.5 percent lift in its own brand quality as perceived by consumers, thus winning more consumer hearts and minds. Also, a 1 percent unexpected increase in Acer’s expert blog sentiment would be associated with a . 7 percent (Toshiba) to 1.5 percent (Sony Vaio) drop in its rival brand quality, thus undermining consumer hearts and minds of competing brands in the same industry. Also, the effects are asymmetrical across leading versus non-leading brands as a 1 percent unexpected increase in expert blog sentiment is associated with a 1.6 percent drop in rival-brand quality perceptions among consumers for non-leading brands, vis-à-vis only a 0.88 percent drop for leading brands. For researchers and managers, these results unravel some neglected benefits of expert blogs. 1
Dissociating Reading Processes on the Basis of Neuronal Interactions

Previous studies of patients with phonological and surface alexia have demonstrated a double dissociation between the reading of pseudo words and words with atypical spelling-to-sound relationships. A corresponding double dissociation in the neuronal activation patterns for pseudo words and exception words has not, however, been consistently demonstrated in normal subjects. Motivated by the literature on acquired alexia, the present study contrasted pseudo words to exception words and explored how neuronal interactions within the reading system are influenced by word type. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure neuronal responses during reading in 22 healthy volunteers. The direct comparison of reading pseudo words and exception words revealed a double dissociation within the left frontal cortex. Pseudo words preferentially increased left dorsal premotor activation, whereas exception words preferentially increased left pars triangularis activation. Critically, these areas correspond to those previously associated with phonological and semantic processing, respectively. Word-type dependent interactions between brain areas were then investigated using dynamic causal modeling. This revealed that increased activation in the dorsal premotor cortex for pseudo words was associated with a selective increase in effective connectivity from the posterior fusiform gyrus. In contrast, increased activation in the pars triangularis for exception words was associated with a selective increase in effective connectivity from the anterior fusiform gyrus. The present investigation is the first to identify distinct neuronal mechanisms for semantic and phonological contributions to reading.
Learning higher-order structures in natural images

The theoretical principles that underlie the representation and computation of higher-order structure in natural images are poorly understood. Recently, there has been considerable interest in using information theoretic techniques, such as independent component analysis, to derive representations for natural images that are optimal in the sense of coding efficiency. Although these approaches have been successful in explaining properties of neural representations in the early visual pathway and visual cortex, because they are based on a linear model, the types of image structure that can be represented are very limited. Here, we present a hierarchical probabilistic model for learning higher-order statistical regularities in natural images. This non-linear model learns an efficient code that describes variations in the underlying probabilistic density. When applied to natural images the algorithm yields coarse-coded, sparse-distributed representations of abstract image properties such as object location, scale and texture. This model offers a novel description of higher-order image structure and could provide theoretical insight into the response properties and computational functions of lower level cortical visual areas.