Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of Baseline Tissue Status (Diffusion-Weighted Imaging Lesion) Versus Perfusion Status (Severity of Hypoperfusion) on Hemorrhagic Transformation

Background and Purpose— The frequency of hemorrhagic transformation (HT) on gradient echo imaging and its impact on stroke outcomes continues to be debated. We investigated the factors associated with HTs and the influence of the HTs observed on gradient echo imaging on the early course after a stroke. Methods— We analyzed the data from a prospectively maintained registry of patients who were eligible for recanalization therapy. Serial diffusion-weighted imaging and perfusion-weighted imaging were performed, and HTs were assessed on follow-up gradient echo imaging. Tmax perfusion lesion maps were generated and hypoperfused regions were divided into severe (Tmax ≥8 seconds) delay and mild (Tmax ≥2 seconds but Tmax <8 seconds) delay. The factors associated with HTs, including the mode of recanalization therapy, pretreatment diffusion-weighted imaging and perfusion-weighted imaging lesion volumes, and reperfusion indices, were evaluated. The early clinical outcome was assessed during the first 7 days of admission. Results— A total of 184 patients were included in this study. HTs were noted in 73 (39.7%) patients. Multiple logistic regression analysis identified aggressive treatment (OR, 5.12; 95% CI, 1.73 to 15.18) and a large area of severe perfusion delay (OR for highest quartile of Tmax >8 seconds, 12.91; 95% CI, 3.69 to 45.17) as independent predictors of HTs. Neither risk factor profiles nor diffusion-weighted imaging lesion volumes were associated with HTs. There was a poor correlation between the radiological (HT types) and clinical (asymptomatic or symptomatic) categories of HTs. Even a parenchymal hematoma was not always associated with symptomatic worsening or affected the early clinical outcomes. Conclusion— The results of this study indicate that the perfusion status (severe perfusion delay) rather than the tissue status (diffusion-weighted imaging lesions) and aggressive treatment were independently associated with HTs. HT on gradient echo imaging was common but usually associated with severe hypoperfusion and not always associated with clinical deterioration.
A multistream multiresolution framework for phoneme recognition

Spectrotemporal representation of speech has already shown promising results in speech processing technologies, however, many inherent issues of such representation, such as high dimensionality have limited their use in speech and speaker recognition. Multistream framework fits very well to such representation where different regions can be separately mapped into posterior probabilities of classes before merging. In this study, we investigated the effective ways of forming streams out of this representation for robust phoneme recognition. We also investigated multiple ways of fusing the posteriors of different streams based on their individual confidence or interactions between them. We observed 8.6% relative improvement in clean and 4% in noise. We developed a simple yet effective linear combination technique that provides intuitive understanding of stream combinations and how even systematic errors can be learned to reduce confusions.
Combining Multiple Resources to Improve SMT-based Paraphrasing Model

This paper proposes a novel method that exploits multiple resources to improve statistical machine translation (SMT) based paraphrasing. In detail, a phrasal paraphrase table and a feature function are derived from each resource, which are then combined in a log-linear SMT model for sentence-level paraphrase generation. Experimental results show that the SMT-based paraphrasing model can be enhanced using multiple resources. The phrase-level and sentence-level precision of the generated paraphrases are above 60% and 55%, respectively. In addition, the contribution of each resource is evaluated, which indicates that all the exploited resources are useful for generating paraphrases of high quality.
Kinematics and eye–head coordination of gaze shifts evoked from different sites in the superior colliculus of the cat

Shifting gaze requires precise coordination of eye and head movements. It is clear that the superior colliculus (SC) is involved with saccadic gaze shifts. Here we investigate its role in controlling both eye and head movements during gaze shifts. Gaze shifts of the same amplitude can be evoked from different SC sites by controlled electrical microstimulation. To describe how the SC coordinates the eye and the head, we compare the characteristics of these amplitude‐matched gaze shifts evoked from different SC sites. We show that matched amplitude gaze shifts elicited from progressively more caudal sites are progressively slower and associated with a greater head contribution. Stimulation at more caudal SC sites decreased the peak velocity of the eye but not of the head, suggesting that the lower peak gaze velocity for the caudal sites is due to the increased contribution of the slower‐moving head. Eye–head coordination across the SC motor map is also indicated by the relative latencies of the eye and head movements. For some amplitudes of gaze shift, rostral stimulation evoked eye movement before head movement, whereas this reversed with caudal stimulation, which caused the head to move before the eyes. These results show that gaze shifts of similar amplitude evoked from different SC sites are produced with different kinematics and coordination of eye and head movements. In other words, gaze shifts evoked from different SC sites follow different amplitude–velocity curves, with different eye–head contributions. These findings shed light on mechanisms used by the central nervous system to translate a high‐level motor representation (a desired gaze displacement on the SC map) into motor commands appropriate for the involved body segments (the eye and the head).
HLA and Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia Susceptibility: A Pilot Study

There is little data on the association between Human Leucocyte Antigen (HLA) alleles and Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia (BPD) of the preterm newborn. Our aim was to assess associations between HLA alleles and BPD susceptibility. We studied 156 preterm neonates (82 M/74 F) < 32 weeks gestational age, alive at 36 weeks gestational age. Detailed clinical data were collected. HLA typing was performed by PCR-SSO. HLA allele frequencies where determined by direct counting for BPD and no-BPD groups. Comparison between BPD and no BPD groups was performed using t-test, χ2 test or Fisher exact test and logistic regression as appropriate. Relative risks (RR) and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were also calculated as association measures. We diagnosed 56 (35.9%) neonates with mild BPD and 27 (17%) with moderate/severe BPD. We found a significant association between HLA-DRB1*01 and mild BPD (OR=3.48[1.23–10.2]). The alleles HLA-A*24, -A*68, -B*51,-Cw*07, -Cw*14, -Cw*15 and -DRB1*01 presented a significant association with moderate/severe BPD. When adjusted to gestational age and birth weight HLA-A*68 (OR=5.41[1.46; 20.05]), -B*51 (OR=3.09[1.11; 8.63]) and -Cw*14 (OR=4.94[1.15; 21.25]) were significantly associated with moderate/severe BPD. Conclusion – Our findings suggest an association between HLA-A*68, -B*51 and -C*14 and BPD susceptibility, and that an autoimmune mechanism may be implicated in the pathogenesis of the disease.
Role of curcumin in mesenteric ischemia - reperfusion injury in rats.

BACKGROUND Curcumin is an antioxidant molecule that has been shown to attenuate ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in several organ systems. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the possible effects of curcumin on contractile response to agonists and histopathological alterations in rat esophagus subjected to mesenteric I/R. MATERIALS AND METHODS Adult male Wistar albino rats were randomly allocated to 4 groups, namely group I: sham-operated animals (n=10); group II: animals subdued to I/R injury only (n=10) and laparotomy; 45 minutes of superior mesenteric artery ligation were followed by 2 hours of reperfusion, group III: curcumin/sham (n=10); 20 days before I/R, curcumin (200 mg/kg/) was administered by gastric gavage, and group IV: curcumin-I/R (n=10). Mesenteric ischemia/reperfusion model was generated by clamping the superior mesenteric artery for 45 min followed by reperfusion for 2 h. Oral administration of curcumin by gavage at a dose of 200 mg/kg/day lasted 20 days just before inducing the mesenteric ischemia. At the end of reperfusion period, all animals were sacrificed and esophagus samples were collected to assess the contractile response to agonists and histopathological alterations. RESULTS Ischemia/reperfusion significantly decreased the contractile responses to carbachol and KCl and this decrease was attenuated by curcumin. Pretreatment with curcumin caused a remarkable decrease in histopathological parameters such as edema, congestion and inflammatory cells. CONCLUSIONS The results of the present study demonstrate for the first time that curcumin can attenuate the esophageal injury associated with I/R (Tab. 4, Fig. 3, Ref. 32).
Conflict Prevalence in Primary School and How It Is Understood to Affect Teaching and Learning in Ghana

Verbal and non-verbal interactions that occur daily between teachers and headteachers, teachers and pupils, and among pupils can generate conflict that may adversely affect teaching, learning, and schooling effectiveness. Little attention is, however, paid to the quality of relationships that exists between teachers and pupils, among teachers, among pupils, between teachers and their school heads, and between schools and their local communities. This study sought to investigate conflict prevalence in Ghana’s primary schools, and how relationship conflict is understood to affect teaching and learning at the level of headteachers as administrators, teachers as classroom managers, and pupils as learners, and direct beneficiaries of primary education. Using data gathered via interview, questionnaire administration, and observation in 30 public primary schools in 10 circuits of one district of Ashanti Region, the findings revealed a high prevalence of fighting, heckling, bullying, and other forms of relationship conflict among pupils; strained teacher–pupil relations due to insolence, indiscipline, and use of offensive language; and teacher–parent arguments and quarrels due to harsh punishment and verbal assault of pupils. Teacher–pupil conflicts may extend to teachers excluding the affected pupils from teaching and learning activities, denying them the rights to ask and answer questions, and have their class exercises marked, leading to lowered pupil self-esteem, reduced concentration during lessons, and passive involvement in learning activities, which could result in truancy and school dropout. Strengthening guidance mechanisms and encouraging peer mediation could significantly curb conflict in school environments and thereby raise educational standards in the district.
Near Duplicate Image Discovery on One Billion Images

Near-duplicate image discovery is the task of detecting all clusters of images which duplicate at a significant region. Previous work generally take divide and conquer approaches composed of two steps: generating cluster seeds using min-hashing, and growing the seeds by searching the entire image space with the seeds as queries. Since the computational complexity of the seed growing step is generally O (NL) where N and L are the number of images and seeds respectively, existing work can hardly be scaled up to a billion-scale dataset because L is typically millions. In this paper, we study a feasible solution of near-duplicate image discovery on one billion images, which is easily implemented on MapReduce framework. The major contribution of this work is to introduce the seed growing step designed to efficiently reduce the number of false positives among cluster seeds with O (cNL) time complexity, where c is small enough for a billion-scale dataset. The basis component of the seed growing step is a bottom-k min-hash, which generates different signatures in a sketch to remove all candidate images that share only one common visual word with a cluster seed. Our evaluations suggest that the proposed method can discover near-duplicate clusters with high precision and recall, and represent some interesting properties of our 1 billion dataset.
Polar Codes for Multiple Descriptions

A polar coding scheme is proposed for the multiple description coding (MDC) problem and is shown to be able to achieve a certain rate pair on the dominant line of the achievable rate region determined by El Gamal and Cover. This scheme is an adaptation of the one developed by ŗaşoğlu et al. for the multiple access channel (MAC) to the MDC setting. The analysis of the proposed scheme contains two new ingredients: 1) a certain MDC-MAC duality and 2) an auxiliary random process that involves both the mutual information and the Bhattacharyya parameter. The decorrelation effect of the polar transform is also investigated.
XSD: Accelerating MapReduce by Harnessing the GPU inside an SSD

Considerable research has been conducted recently on near-data processing techniques as real-world tasks increasingly involve large-scale and high-dimensional data sets. The advent of solid-state drives (SSDs) has spurred further research because of their processing capability and high internal bandwidth. However, the data processing capability of conventional SSD systems have not been impressive. In particular, they lack the parallel processing abilities that are crucial for data-centric workloads and that are needed to exploit the high internal bandwidth of the SSD. To overcome these shortcomings, we propose a new SSD architecture that integrates a graphics processing unit (GPU). We provide API sets based on the MapReduce framework that allow users to express parallelism in their application, and that exploit the parallelism provided by the embedded GPU. For better performance and utilization, we present optimization strategies to overcome challenges inherent in the SSD architecture. A performance model is also developed that provides an analytical way to tune the SSD design. Our experimental results show that the proposed XSD is approximately 25 times faster compared to an SSD model incorporating a high-performance embedded CPU and up to 4 times faster than a model incorporating a discrete GPU.
An exploration of the role of a fish-oriented diet in cognitive decline: a systematic review of the literature

Epidemiological studies have presented inconsistent evidence of the correlation between a fish-oriented dietary intake (FDI) and the risk of cognitive decline. To address these controversies, we performed this systematic review of prospective studies published in December 2016 and earlier using PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. Two independent researchers conducted the eligibility assessment and data extraction; all discrepancies were solved by discussion with a third researcher. The pooled relative risks (RRs) focused on the incidence of events were estimated with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Overall, nine studies containing 28,754 subjects were analyzed. When the highest and lowest categories of fish consumption were compared, the summary RR for dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT) was 0.80 (95%CI = 0.65–0.97); i.e., people with a higher intake of fish had a 20% (95%CI = 3–35%) decreased risk of DAT. Additionally, the dose-response synthesized data indicated that a 100-g/week increase in fish intake reduced the risk of DAT by an additional 12% (RR = 0.88, 95%CI = 0.79–0.99). Non-significant results were observed for the risk of dementia of all causes (DAC) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Limited evidence involving heterogeneity was found within subgroups or across studies. In conclusion, this review confirmed that a higher intake of fish could be correlated with a reduced risk of DAT. Further research, especially prospective studies that specifically quantify FDI, will help find a more accurate assessment of the different levels of dietary intake.
Verifiable secret sharing and achieving simultaneity in the presence of faults

Verifiable secret sharing is a cryptographic protocol that allows one to break a secret in 11 pieccs and publicly distribute thcln to 11 people so that tile secret is reconstructible given only sufficiently many pieces. 'rhe novelty is that everyone can verify that all received a "valid" piece of the secret without having any idea of what the secret is. One application of this tool is the simulation of simultaneous-broadcast networks on semi-synchronous broadcast networks.
Detecting Injection Attacks on Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control

Although vehicle platooning promises to improve transportation efficiency and safety by leveraging communication between convoy members, preliminary results in previous work suggest that cyber-attacks could deceive many Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control algorithms, hence endangering the safety of every participant. This paper deeply analyzes the case of injection attacks. First, we introduce an extensive security analysis carried out through realistic simulations, to demonstrate how even slight and smooth falsification attacks do succeed in fooling the CACC controllers and cause numerous vehicle crashes. Second, we present a novel misbehavior detection technique. It leverages the correlation between multiple motion parameters concerning both single and consecutive vehicles to evaluate the plausibility of the information received from the other members. Extensive validation confirms the effectiveness of the technique proposed: overall, it succeeds to detect all the attacks simulated and prevents the occurrence of safety-critical situations.
Self-Sensing Actuation With Adaptive Control in Applications With Switching Trajectory

This paper presents the application of self-sensing actuation (SSA) to facilitate the implementation of piezoelectric actuator in an intelligent mechatronic system. SSA is a technique to employ smart materials, such as piezoelectric materials, simultaneously as a sensor and an actuator; thereby increasing the level of integration of the system. The piezoelectric actuator is equipped with an exclusive adaptive controller amidst its nonlinearities and system's disturbance. The application area to be discussed is a microdispensing system, which is an example of a micromanufacturing process, combining a fluidic system and a positioning system.
Choice of management strategy for colorectal cancer based on a diagnostic immunohistochemical test for defective mismatch repair

BACKGROUND Despite intensive research into the molecular abnormalities associated with colorectal cancer (CRC), no diagnostic tests have emerged which usefully complement standard histopathological assessments. AIMS To assess the feasibility of using immunohistochemistry to detect replication error (RER) positive CRCs and determine the incidence of RER positivity within distinct patient subgroups. METHODS 502 CRCs were analysed for RER positivity (at least two markers affected) and/or expression of hMSH2 and hMLH1. RESULTS There were 15/30 (50%) patients with metachronous CRCs, 16/51 (31%) with synchronous CRCs, 14/45 (31%) with a proximal colon carcinoma, and 4/23 (17%) who developed a CRC under the age of 50 showed RER positivity. However, 0/54 patients who developed a solitary carcinoma of the rectum/left colon over the age of 50 showed RER positivity. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that 66/66 (100%) RER positive carcinomas were associated with complete lack of expression of either hMSH2 or hMLH1. This correlation was confirmed using a further 101 proximal colon carcinomas. Patients with a mismatch repair defective carcinoma showed improved survival but a 5.54 times relative risk of developing a metachronous CRC. A prospective immunohistochemical study revealed 13/117 (11%) patients had a mismatch repair defective carcinoma. A fivefold excess of hMLH1 defective cases was noted. CONCLUSIONS All RER positive carcinomas were identified by the immunohistochemical test. This is the first simple laboratory test which can be performed routinely on all CRCs. It will provide a method for selecting patients who should be investigated for HNPCC, offered long term follow up, and who may not respond to standard chemotherapy regimens.
Arsenic in Soils and Forages from Poultry Litter-Amended Pastures

In regions of concentrated poultry production, poultry litter (PL) that contains significant quantities of trace elements is commonly surface-applied to pastures at high levels over multiple years. This study examined the effect of long-term applications of PL on soil concentrations of arsenic (As), copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), and the uptake of these elements by bermuda grass grown on Cecil (well-drained) and Sedgefield (somewhat poorly-drained) soils. The results showed that concentrations of As, Cu, and Zn in soils that had received surface-applied PL over a 14-year period were significantly greater than untreated soil at 0–2.5 and 2.5–7.5 cm depths. However, the levels were well below the USEPA loading limits established for municipal biosolids. Arsenic fractionation showed that concentrations of all As fractions were significantly greater in PL-amended soils compared to untreated soils at 0–2.5 and 2.5–7.5 cm depths. The residual fraction was the predominant form of As in all soils. The water-soluble and NaHCO3-associated As were only 2% of the total As. Significant differences were found in concentrations of these trace elements and phosphorus (P) in forage from PL-amended soils compared to that in untreated plots. The concentrations of Cu, Zn, As, and P were significantly greater in forage from Sedgefield amended soil compared to Cecil soil, but were in all cases below levels of environmental concern.
Prioritizing strategic business units in the face of innovation performance: Combining fuzzy AHP and BSC

Large corporations may be composed of multiple strategic business units (SBUs), each of which is responsible for its own profitability. Innovation performance management of SBUs boosts corporation business results. In the present work, SBU ranking based on innovation performance was addressed. The contribution of the proposed model was threefold: (1) it proposed a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for SBU ranking with triangular fuzzy numbers; (2) it provided a comprehensive and systematic framework that combined balanced scorecard (BSC) and fuzzy AHP; and (3) it explored practical application and illustrated the efficacy of the procedures and algorithms. It used a real-world case study in a large steel manufacturing company to present the applicability of the system. Finding SBU priorities would help the corporations to develop strategies and policies to manage and improve SBU performance.
Who is citing whom: Citation network analysis among HRD publications from 1990 to 2007

A citation network analysis among four major journals in human resource development (HRD) was conducted to discover the major themes of published articles in HRD. A total of 1,410 articles from 1990 to 2007 were coded. Following the examination of attributes of the citation network, main path analysis, influence analysis, and reduced network analysis were conducted. The key findings are (a) the HRD citation network shares the attributes of a small world network which is characterized as high cohesiveness locally and low separation globally; (b) HRD texts tend to gather around papers dealing with three significant topics; (c) a reduced citation network was generated based on cliques and divided into four blocks; and (d) a geographical position of a text in the citation network was highly associated with the topics (theory building or training transfer) and with the nature of the study (foundational or applied). Implications of the current study and suggestions for future study based on the limitations of the study are addressed.