Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patient choice modules for summaries of clinical effectiveness: a proposal

Evidence based health care has become the accepted basis of good clinical practice, and many efforts are being made to implement it. Evidence based patient choice, defined as offering patients research based information and the opportunity to influence decisions about their treatment and care, has yet to achieve the same status. We believe, however, that it is fundamental to high quality patient care. In our ideal world difficult or controversial healthcare decisions would routinely involve health professionals deliberating with patients about the harms and benefits of all available options, as well as patients' treatment goals and risk tolerance. For key medical decisions, patients and doctors would expect to work through the evidence and decide on a course of action together. Patients who wished to delegate decision making to a doctor or surrogate decision maker would still be given the information that they wanted. Various strategies may be needed to achieve this widespread implementation of evidence based patient choice. 1 2 In this article we focus on a strategy to improve the accessibility of information resources to support evidence based patient choice. The books, journals, and websites that currently provide evidence based information about the effectiveness of healthcare interventions could provide the infrastructure to support patients' participation in evidence based decision making. These information sources should incorporate consumer focused summaries of relevant research evidence and links or pointers to well designed and tested decision aids for patients. These summaries should be made available to patients before, during, and after consultations. Doctors and health systems could use and distribute them as an adjunct to clinical care. They would also be available to the public generally. The news and information media, patient groups, and others would draw on patient choice summaries to present the benefits and limitations of medical screening and treatment. ### Summary points Evidence …
Experimental study of tenability during a full‐scale motorcoach tire fire

Full‐scale fire experiments were conducted at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to investigate tire fire interactions with the passenger compartment of a motorcoach. A single full‐scale experiment with a partially furnished interior was conducted to investigate tire fire growth within the passenger compartment and the onset of untenable conditions. A tire fire was initiated using a burner designed to imitate the frictional heating of hub and wheel metal caused by failed axle bearings, locked brakes, or dragged blown tires. Measurements of interior and exterior temperatures, interior heat flux, heat release rate, toxic gases, and visibility were performed. Standard and infrared videos and still photographs were also recorded. The results of this single experiment showed that after fire penetration into the passenger compartment, the tenability limits were reached within 8 minutes near the fire and within 11 minutes throughout the passenger compartment.
Tunable narrow-band X-band bandpass filters

This dissertation proposes two narrow-band tunable X-band lters from di erent classes, one planar and one waveguide. The rst is a suspended substrate varactor-tuned doubly end-loaded staircase lter that incorporates a geometrically decoupled biasing structure. The second design consists of a varactor-tuned evanescent mode waveguide lter that incorporates tuning screws and a symmetrical varactor mounting structure inside the guide. The lters are designed for miniaturization with competitive lter performance in terms of centre frequency tunability, insertion loss and bandwidth performance. A planar staircase lter with electrically decoupled biasing and centre frequency tunability is realised using a suspended substrate and surface mount varactor diodes. Each half-wave resonator is terminated at both ends with identical varactor diodes, controlled by a single biasing line running through the roof of the enclosure. For symmetrically loaded half-wave resonators such as used in the staircase lter, each resonant line is DC decoupled from the next and a zero-voltage point exists in the centre of each line. This point is stationary under changes in centre frequency, which is a signi cant advantage for tunable lters. The biasing structure is also non-resonant, which allows for good out-ofband performance. The proposed planar structure is illustrated by a fth order staircase X-band lter. Using varactors at each open end of the resonators together with spatially decoupled bias feeds, a measured centre frequency tunability of 400 MHz is achieved around a nominal frequency of 11.9 GHz. The tunable evanescent mode waveguide lter is realised with in-waveguide mounted varactors and tuning screws. The mechanical tuning screws enable rough-tuning, while the varactors provide ne-tuning capabilities. The varactors are connected back-to-back on central metal plates which are grounded to the enclosure. The other end of each varactor is connected to a biasing wire which exits the enclosure through a small hole in the side of the waveguide. A centre frequency tunability of 1.3 GHz around a nominal frequency of 10.45 GHz is achieved by the manufactured lter prototype. Both lters are evaluated through theory and simulation in terms of the thermal resistance of the mounting structure and input power limitations due to the non-linearity and power dissipation of the varactor diodes. Across the full tuning range of the planar lter, the maximum input power limit is 8 dBm. For the waveguide lter, the simulation yielded a maximum input power limit for full range tunability of 2 dBm due to the nonlinearity of the hyperabrupt varactor diode, the applied voltage, and the power dissipation in the varactors. The proposed biasing structure is a novel method for biasing planar lters, and to the knowledge of the author, this is the rst application of the speci ed in-waveguide mounted diode structure in tunable evanescent mode waveguide lters. iii Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za
Molecular Characterization of Campylobacter jejuni Clones: A Basis for Epidemiologic Investigation

A total of 814 isolates of the foodborne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni were characterized by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and analysis of the variation of two cell-surface components: the heat-stable (HS) serotyping antigen and the flagella protein FlaA short variable region (SVR). We identified 379 combinations of the MLST loci (sequence types) and 215 combinations of the cell-surface components among these isolates, which had been obtained from human disease, animals, food, and the environment. Despite this diversity, 748 (92%) of the isolates belonged to one of 17 clonal complexes, 6 of which contained many (318, 63%) of the human disease isolates. Several clonal complexes exhibited associations with isolation source or particular cell-surface components; however, the latter were poorly predictive of clonal complex. These data demonstrate that the clonal complex, as defined by MLST, is an epidemiologically relevant unit for both long and short-term investigations of C. jejuni epidemiology.
Automated Lung Nodule Detection at Low-Dose CT: Preliminary Experience

Objective To determine the usefulness of a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system for the automated detection of lung nodules at low-dose CT. Materials and Methods A CAD system developed for detecting lung nodules was used to process the data provided by 50 consecutive low-dose CT scans. The results of an initial report, a second look review by two chest radiologists, and those obtained by the CAD system were compared, and by reviewing all of these, a gold standard was established. Results By applying the gold standard, a total of 52 nodules were identified (26 with a diameter ≤ 5 mm; 26 with a diameter > 5 mm). Compared to an initial report, four additional nodules were detected by the CAD system. Three of these, identified only at CAD, formed part of the data used to derive the gold standard. For the detection of nodules > 5 mm in diameter, sensitivity was 77% for the initial report, 88% for the second look review, and 65% for the CAD system. There were 8.0±5.2 false-positive CAD results per CT study. Conclusion These preliminary results indicate that a CAD system may improve the detection of pulmonary nodules at low-dose CT.
Evaluation of photographs supporting an FFQ developed for adolescents

Abstract Objective To evaluate the validity of food photographs used to support the reporting of food intake with an FFQ designed for adolescents from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Design A set of ninety-five food photographs was elaborated. The photographs’ evaluation process included the acknowledgement of foods and portions in the pictures. In the identification of foods (ninety-five photographs) and typical portions (twelve photographs), the adolescents were requested to answer a structured questionnaire related to the food photographs. The identification of the portion size of amorphous foods (forty-three photographs) was performed using three different portion sizes of actual preparations. The proportions (and 95 % confidence intervals) of adolescents who correctly identified foods and portion size in each photograph were estimated. Setting A public school in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Subjects Sixty-two adolescents between 11·0 and 18·9 years old, randomly selected. Results At least 90 % of adolescents correctly identified the food in ninety-two photographs and the food in the three remaining photographs was recognized by 80–89 % of the adolescents. At least 98 % of the adolescents correctly identified eleven typical or natural portions in the food photographs. For amorphous foods, at least 70 % of teenagers correctly identified the portion size in the photograph of thirty-one foods; for the other photographs, the portion size was correctly recognized by 50–69 % of the adolescents for eight foods and by less than 50 % of adolescents for four foods. Conclusions The analysed photographs are appropriate visual aids to the reporting of food consumption by adolescents.
Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis with MUNC13‐4 gene mutation or reduced natural killer cell function prior to onset of childhood leukemia

Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a rare histiocytic reactive process due to mutations in the perforin, MUNC13‐4 or syntaxin 11 genes, or secondary to malignancy, infection or autoimmune disorder. HLH as a preceding diagnosis to leukemia is rare. We report two cases with progression to acute leukemia, one heterozygous for MUNC13‐4 and the other with reduced natural killer (NK) cell function and perforin expression. These defects may predispose to a secondary HLH‐like presentation of pre‐clinical leukemia or confer increased susceptibility to malignancy. HLH patients with genetic mutations or NK cell function abnormalities need monitoring for future malignancy even if the HLH resolves. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2011;56:856–858. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Survey of Tickborne Infections in Denmark

We conducted a study of the distribution and prevalence of tickborne infections in Denmark by using roe deer as sentinels. Blood samples from 237 roe deer were collected during the 2002–2003 hunting season. Overall, 36.6% of deer were Borrelia seropositive, while 95.6% were Anaplasma phagocytophilum positive; all animals were negative for Bartonella quintana and B. henselae by indirect immunofluorescence assay. When a hemagglutination-inhibition test was used, 8.7% of deer were found positive for tickborne encephalitis (TBE)-complex virus. A total of 42.6% were found positive by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for A. phagocytophilum with significant seasonal variation. All were PCR negative for Rickettsia helvetica. PCR and sequencing also showed a novel bacterium in roe deer previously only found in ticks. The study showed that the emerging pathogen A. phagocytophilum is widely distributed and that a marked shift has occurred in the distribution of TBE-complex virus in Denmark. This finding supports studies that predict alterations in distribution due to climatic changes.
Protective Effect of Quercetin on Hydrogen Peroxide–Induced Tight Junction Disruption

Tight junction is a crucial structure in the control of paracellular transport across epithelial/endothelial barriers. This study investigated the protective effect of quercetin against hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-induced tight junction disruption and hyperpermeability in ECV304 monolayers. Nonlethal concentration of H2O2 (100 µmol/L; 4 hours) decreased expression of the tight junction proteins zonular occudens (ZO)-1 and occludin as well as disrupted the junction structure at the cell border. Concurrently, the increased activities of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)1/2 and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) were observed. Pretreatment with quercetin (10 µmol/L; 30 minutes) prior to H2O2 prevented the loss of ZO-1 and occludin. In addition, the level of phosphorylated p38 MAPK, but not that of the phosphorylated ERK1/2, decreased in quercetin-pretreated group. These findings suggested that the protective effect of quercetin involved the inhibition of phosphorylated p38 MAP activity. Furthermore, quercetin could also preserve the functional integrity of ECV304 monolayers from H2O2 exposure.
Improving the Annotation of Sentence Specificity

We introduce improved guidelines for annotation of sentence specificity, addressing the issues encountered in prior work. Our annotation provides judgements of sentences in context. Rather than binary judgements, we introduce a specificity scale which accommodates nuanced judgements. Our augmented annotation procedure also allows us to define where in the discourse context the lack of specificity can be resolved. In addition, the cause of the underspecification is annotated in the form of free text questions. We present results from a pilot annotation with this new scheme and demonstrate good inter-annotator agreement. We found that the lack of specificity distributes evenly among immediate prior context, long distance prior context and no prior context. We find that missing details that are not resolved in the the prior context are more likely to trigger questions about the reason behind events, “why” and “how”. Our data is accessible at http://www.cis. upenn.edu/~nlp/corpora/lrec16spec.html
The Study on the Techniques on Gun-Dome Camera Cooperative Human-Tracing

Currently, how to automatically realize acquisition, refining and fast retrieval of the target information in surveillance video has become an urgent demand in public security visual surveillance field. This paper proposes a new gun-dome camera cooperative system which solves the above problem partly. The system adopts master-slave static panorama-variable view dual-camera cooperative video-monitoring system. In the proposed architecture, Deformable Part Model (DPM) method realizes real-time detection of pedestrian. The look-up table method is proved feasible in dual-camera cooperative calibration procedure while the depth information of moving target changes slightly. In addition, the experimental results show the effectiveness and efficiency of the dual-camera human-tracing system.
Biomimetic Platelet‐Camouflaged Nanorobots for Binding and Isolation of Biological Threats

One emerging and exciting topic in robotics research is the design of micro‐/nanoscale robots for biomedical operations. Unlike industrial robots that are developed primarily to automate routine and dangerous tasks, biomedical nanorobots are designed for complex, physiologically relevant environments, and tasks that involve unanticipated biological events. Here, a biologically interfaced nanorobot is reported, made of magnetic helical nanomotors cloaked with the plasma membrane of human platelets. The resulting biomimetic nanorobots possess a biological membrane coating consisting of diverse functional proteins associated with human platelets. Compared to uncoated nanomotors which experience severe biofouling effects and hence hindered propulsion in whole blood, the platelet‐membrane‐cloaked nanomotors disguise as human platelets and display efficient propulsion in blood over long time periods. The biointerfaced nanorobots display platelet‐mimicking properties, including adhesion and binding to toxins and platelet‐adhering pathogens, such as Shiga toxin and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. The locomotion capacity and platelet‐mimicking biological function of the biomimetic nanomotors offer efficient binding and isolation of these biological threats. The dynamic biointerfacing platform enabled by platelet‐membrane cloaked nanorobots thus holds considerable promise for diverse biomedical and biodefense applications.
On Recursively Directed Hypercubes

In this paper we introduce the recursively directed hypercubes , and analyze some of their structural properties. We show that every recursively directed hypercube is acyclic, and has a unique pair of source and sink nodes. The main contribution of the paper is an analysis of distances between the nodes in such a graph. We show that the distance from the source node to any other node, and from any node to the sink node is bounded by $n+1$, where $n$ is the dimension of the hypercube, but the diameter of a recursively directed hypercube may be exponential in $n$.
Socialbots Supporting Human Rights

Socialbots, or non-human/algorithmic social media users, have recently been documented as competing for information dissemination and disruption on online social networks. Here we investigate the influence of socialbots in Mexican Twitter in regards to the "Tanhuato" human rights abuse report. We analyze the applicability of the BotOrNot API to generalize from English to Spanish tweets and propose adaptations for Spanish-speaking bot detection. We then use text and sentiment analysis to compare the differences between bot and human tweets. Our analysis shows that bots actually aided in information proliferation among human users. This suggests that taxonomies classifying bots should include non-adversarial roles as well. Our study contributes to the understanding of different behaviors and intentions of automated accounts observed in empirical online social network data. Since this type of analysis is seldom performed in languages different from English, the proposed techniques we employ here are also useful for other non-English corpora.
The many faces of hematopoietic stem cell heterogeneity

Not all hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are alike. They differ in their physical characteristics such as cell cycle status and cell surface marker phenotype, they respond to different extrinsic signals, and they have different lineage outputs following transplantation. The growing body of evidence that supports heterogeneity within HSCs, which constitute the most robust cell fraction at the foundation of the adult hematopoietic system, is currently of great interest and raises questions as to why HSC subtypes exist, how they are generated and whether HSC heterogeneity affects leukemogenesis or treatment options. This Review provides a developmental overview of HSC subtypes during embryonic, fetal and adult stages of hematopoiesis and discusses the possible origins and consequences of HSC heterogeneity. Summary: This Review takes a close look at hematopoietic stem cell heterogeneity during development and in the adult, and discusses several different ways in which this heterogeneity may arise.
A large retrospective multicenter study of vaginal melanomas: implications for new management

The outcome of patients presenting with vaginal melanoma has been assessed in a large multicentric retrospective study. The databases of 12 French institutions were searched for primary vaginal melanomas managed between 1990 and 2007. Among the 54 patients recorded, 46 were managed with a curative intent and included in the study. The clinical characteristics, treatments, and detection of c-KIT protein expression have been studied. The median age of the patients was 63.5 years (42–88). Twenty-eight patients were classified as International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage I, five as stage II, six as stage III, and one as stage IVA. c-KIT protein was overexpressed in 80% of the patients. Forty-two patients underwent surgical resection of the tumor, nine patients received local adjuvant treatment, and 10 received systemic adjuvant therapy. The median relapse-free survival was 10.9 months. c-KIT-negative status (P=0.01) and stage I (P=0.02) were associated with locoregional recurrence. The rate of metastasis was increased for advanced FIGO stages (P<0.01). The median overall survival (OS) was 28.4 months. The finding of lymph node metastasis adversely affected OS (P<0.01). Conservative surgery and radiotherapy were associated with a decrease in metastasis-free and OS (P<0.01) compared with surgery alone, this group of patients presenting with advanced FIGO stages (P=0.02). Despite the use of limited data, conservative surgery combined with a sentinel lymph node procedure, followed by adjuvant radiotherapy could be proposed to patients with early FIGO stage in the absence of validated management. c-KIT negativity by immunochemistry appears to be a poor prognosis marker in terms of locoregional recurrences but not for metastatic spread nor survival. Further assessment of the role of c-KIT expression in this disease is thus mandatory to select patients for targeted therapy.
Design and 3D printing customized guides for orthopaedic surgery – lessons learned

Purpose This paper aims to fill a research gap by presenting design and 3D printing guidelines and considerations which apply to the development process of patient-specific osteotomy guides for orthopaedic surgery. Design/methodology/approach Analysis of specific constraints related to patient-specific surgical guides design and 3D printing, lessons learned during the development process of osteotomy guides for orthopaedic surgery, literature review of recent studies in the field and data gathered from questioning a group of surgeons for capturing their preferences in terms of surgical guides design corresponding to precise functionality (materializing cutting trajectories, ensuring unique positioning and stable fixation during surgery), were all used to extract design recommendations. Findings General design rules for patient-specific osteotomy guides were inferred from examining each step of the design process applied in several case studies in relation to how these guides should be designed to fulfill medical and manufacturing (fused deposition modelling process) constraints. Literature was also investigated for finding other information than the simple reference that the surgical guide is modelled as negative of the bone. It was noticed that literature is focussed more on presenting and discussing medical issues and on assessing surgical outcomes, but hardly at all on guides’ design and design for additive manufacturing aspects. Moreover, surgeons’ opinion was investigated to collect data on different design aspects, as well as interest and willingness to use such 3D-printed surgical guides in training and surgery. Practical implications The study contains useful rules and recommendations for engineers involved in designing and 3D printing patient-specific osteotomy guides. Originality/value A synergetic approach to identify general rules and recommendations for the patient-specific surgical guides design is presented. Specific constraints are identified and analysed using three case studies of wrist, femur and foot osteotomies. Recent literature is reviewed and surgeons’ opinion is investigated.