Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Uveal melanoma in young patients.

OBJECTIVE To study the clinical profile of young patients with uveal melanoma. DESIGN Retrospective case-control series. SETTING Tertiary referral center. PATIENTS Data on 63 patients aged 20 years or younger with uveal melanoma were reviewed for clinical profile and association with oculo(dermal) melanocytosis, familial uveal melanoma, dysplastic nevus syndrome, cutaneous melanoma, and other second malignant neoplasms. RESULTS Of 8000 patients with uveal melanoma, 63 (0.8%) were found in patients who were 20 years of age or younger. The median age at diagnosis was 16 years, and the youngest patient was 3 years old. Sixty-two patients (98%) were white, and uveal melanoma was unilateral in all cases. Seven patients (11%) had oculo(dermal) melanocytosis. Two patients (3%) had dysplastic nevi syndrome, and personal history of cutaneous melanoma was observed in 1 patient (2%). No other second cancers were present in any patient. The 5- and 15-year posttreatment survival estimates were 0.95 (95% confidence interval, 0.87-1.00) and 0.77 (95% confidence interval, 0.52-1.00), respectively. CONCLUSIONS Uveal melanoma is rare in children or teenagers. It occurs in a heterogeneous group displaying various associations, especially with oculo(dermal) melanocytosis. Oculo(dermal) melanocytosis is 9 times (95% confidence interval, 3.6-22.8) more common in young patients with uveal melanoma than in the general population with uveal melanoma. Young patients with uveal melanoma have short-term (5-year) survival better than that of adults, but the long-term (15-year) survival is similar to that of adults. Arch Ophthalmol. 2000;118:918-923
Behavioral Modeling of Microwave Amplifiers Including Large-signal and Noise Interaction

The signal and noise interaction in microwave amplifiers operating under nonlinear conditions is presented in this paper. The theoretical output noise spectrum calculated from a behavioral modeling based on the autocorrelation function is compared to experimental data obtained from a dedicated test-set. The noise mixing with a sinusoidal signal and its harmonics is then well described for both low-pass and band-pass filtered noise. Moreover, the model is well suited to fit AM-AM characteristics and total harmonic distortion
Accurate and real-time lip contour extraction based on constrained contour growing

In this paper, a novel method for accurate and real-time lip contour extraction in gray-level images is presented. The main idea is to grow the contour from some key points based on constraints of parabola fitting and gradient maximum which are combined using D-S theory. This approach can accurately extract continuous lip contour by simultaneously taking color and shape information into consideration, and achieve real-time performance using less computation without iteration and modeling, which can provide high efficiency to meet the need of real-time application. Furthermore, this method is applied in a real-time lipreading system using visual features constructed from lip contour information extracted by the proposed method. Experimental results show that both the lip contour extraction and lipreading system achieved good performance, which demonstrates the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.
A Dependency Constraint Grammar for Esperanto

Proceedings of the NODALIDA 2009 workshop Constraint Grammar and robust parsing. Editors: Eckhard Bick, Kristin Hagen, Kaili Muurisep and Trond Trosterud. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 8 (2009), 8-12. © 2009 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio. no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle. net/10062/14180 .
A storage scheme for multidimensional data alleviating dimension dependency

Multidimensional arrays storing multidimensional data in MOLAP are usually very sparse. They also suffer from the problem that the time consumed in sequential access to array elements heavily depends on the dimension along which the elements are accessed. This problem of ldquodimension dependencyrdquo would be alleviated by dividing the whole array into the set of smaller hypercube shaped subarrays called ldquochunksrdquo. But the chunks are also sparse and should be compressed. However, further dimension dependency in accessing array elements would be caused, unless these compressed chunks are arranged judiciously in the page buffer. The difference among the dimension cardinalities could also cause dimension dependency; slice operation along a dimension of large cardinality tends to consume much time. We will alleviate these two kinds of dimension dependency by introducing the notion of an ldquoextended chunkrdquo. Extended chunks can adapt flexibly to the general situation where data densities in chunks are low and are not uniformly distributed. Employing extended chunks, we will propose some secondary storage schemes for a multidimensional array using a space-filling curve such as Z-curve. The evaluation result shows that the proposed storage schemes exhibit good performance while alleviating the dimension dependency.
Identifying User Interaction Patterns in E-Textbooks

We introduce a new architecture for e-textbooks which contains two navigational aids: an index and a concept map. We report results from an evaluation in a university setting with 99 students. The interaction sequences of the users were captured during the user study. We found several clusters of user interaction types in our data. Three separate user types were identified based on the interaction sequences: passive user, term clicker, and concept map user. We also discovered that with the concept map interface users started to interact with the application significantly sooner than with the index interface. Overall, our findings suggest that analysis of interaction patterns allows deeper insights into the use of e-textbooks than is afforded by summative evaluation.
Application of Massively Parallel Sequencing in the Clinical Diagnostic Testing of Inherited Cardiac Conditions

Sudden cardiac death in people between the ages of 1–40 years is a devastating event and is frequently caused by several heritable cardiac disorders. These disorders include cardiac ion channelopathies, such as long QT syndrome, catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia and Brugada syndrome and cardiomyopathies, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. Through careful molecular genetic evaluation of DNA from sudden death victims, the causative gene mutation can be uncovered, and the rest of the family can be screened and preventative measures implemented in at-risk individuals. The current screening approach in most diagnostic laboratories uses Sanger-based sequencing; however, this method is time consuming and labour intensive. The development of massively parallel sequencing has made it possible to produce millions of sequence reads simultaneously and is potentially an ideal approach to screen for mutations in genes that are associated with sudden cardiac death. This approach offers mutation screening at reduced cost and turnaround time. Here, we will review the current commercially available enrichment kits, massively parallel sequencing (MPS) platforms, downstream data analysis and its application to sudden cardiac death in a diagnostic environment.
Educating a new engineer

University education is experiencing an enormous breakdown. An increasing number of students, employers, faculty, business executives, management specialists , public officials, and taxpayers have declared their dissatisfaction with the education and research that is aw " able in most of our universities. Commentators say we do not know how to educate graduates who know how to succeed in the new kinds of organizations and shifting worldwide markets that are emerging. These complaints have a special poi-gnancy for those of us who devote our lives to information technology, for information technology animates the very changes that drive the critics' dissatisfactions. Our institutions and businesses are experiencing a radical revision of the basic assumptions in which our practices and world views are rooted. These roots are visible in the traditional answers to the six basic questions underlying engineering education and research:. What is a profession? • What is a university? • What is education? • What is research? • What is work? • What is innovation? An increasing number of people are fred-ing the traditional answers hollow and unreal. Finding new answers to these questions is a task of special urgency. Universities face major threats to their survival. They no longer command public confidence and : automatic good will of public officials, a mood that has already damaged many of them financially. Private organizations such as Nintendo, Sony, Apple Computer , and others are preparing to offer significant educational ser-es that for the first time directly compete with the universities. In what follows, two major claims are explored: First, the framework of assumptions that constitute our current approach to engineering education is based on answers to the six questions that are no longer valid, and consequently the approach itself is no longer adequate. Second, a curriculum capable of preparing students for the shifting world must incorporate new elements emphasizing design, demonstrated proficiency, effective interaction with others, and a greater sensitivity toward the historical and cultural spaces in which we all live and work. The time has come to experiment with new curricula that will lead this way. We cannot wait for the federal government or even the recovering economy to make conditions better. The loss of public
Banking Entrepreneurship Differentials between Europe and USA. A Note

The present paper refers to the field of “corporate convergence theory”. A recent work on corporate convergence of Krishna et al. (2002) points out that there is little evidence that common standards in corporate governance have been implemented. Besides, in the same study (page 2) it is mentioned that so far there is no empirical evidence on whether there is a convergence in corporate governance between countries. Therefore, the contribution of the present paper is that: at first It introduces a new concept (the entrepreneurship reward in banking sector); second it evaluates numerically for each country the ability (capacity) of entrepreneur by using various criteria (such as profitability, cost control, market share, etc.); third, it compares numerically the above defined evaluation in each country and each year with that of the USA (of the same year), defining for each year a new variable called “entrepreneurship ability differential”. This differential in other words is the numeric difference of the ability (capacity) of entrepreneur that each European country has from the USA in the same year; forth, finally, it shows that in the long run this “entrepreneurship ability differential” declines. In economics this means that in the long run there is a convergence regarding the entrepreneurship ability (or corporate governance ability) between each European country and the USA. Hence, in this paper an attempt is made to introduce a new tool for comparison between each European country and the USA and also a method to check whether there is a convergence between each European country and the USA. Further, in this paper two concepts can be discussed: “the local entrepreneurship ability convergence” and “the global entrepreneurship ability convergence”. By local we mean the convergence according to only one criterion about entrepreneurship ability (or corporate each year and that of the USA (of the same year) decline in the long run. As a criterion to compare entrepreneurship will be the elasticity of banking profitability over the banking entrepreneurship reward. Extending the present paper, many additional criteria, of either macroeconomic or microeconomic nature, can be used.
Use of Independent Component Analysis to Define Regions of Interest for Fmri Studies

Introduction Regions of interest (ROIs) are frequently used in fMRI studies in order to limit an analysis to an anatomically or functionally defined area, or to investigate interactions between groups of voxels. Whether functional ROIs are defined on the basis of independent data, or non-independently based on contrasting a subset of conditions within the experiment, investigators face a number of arbitrary choices concerning the statistical threshold to employ and the method for delineating ROI boundaries. (Poldrack, 2006). We propose a method for defining ROIs using independent component analysis (ICA). This method avoids many of the shortcomings of general linear model (GLM) based ROI definition, and is robust and easy to implement using FSL As a demonstration, we apply this method to define ROIs in the cortex and cerebellum that respond selectively to aurally paced movements of the lips, hands, and feet.
Rescue Activity for the Great East Japan Earthquake Based on a Website that Extracts Rescue Requests from the Net

At the early phase of the Great East Japan Earthquake a vast number of tweets were made on Twitter. Even though many of them were calling for emergency rescue, they were not found timely due to the vast number of tweets including wellintentioned tweets to support those emergency rescues. In order to deal with the situation, the authors developed and launched a website on March 16, 2011, which automatically extracts rescue requests, categorizes similar statements into several statements and then lists them. This paper covers in detail not only the technology of the system but also how it has already collaborated and been applied to #99japan, a project to support delivering emergency rescue requests. Note that #99japan is an activity to monitor the process of the rescue based on Twitter and coming from the thread started by temporary volunteers who organized on a Japanese textboard 2 “2channel. ”
A Fuzzy-Based Algorithm for Auditors to Detect Element of Fraud in Settled Insurance Claims

In the current global economy, the survival of insurance companies depends on its ability to respond to the customer demands, which are settlements of the insurance claims. All insurance companies face the conflicting goals of settling claims quickly and authenticating the claims. The increasing cost of human experts in fraud detection has led many companies to develop expert systems, which respond to the needs of the companies in a cost effective and efficient way. It has been observed that the opportunity exists for claim adjustors to settle insurance claims in favor of the claimants simply by colluding with the claimant and sacrificing the monetary interest of the insurers. This use of experts in claim settlement leaves room for subjective judgment and the use of discretion while finalizing a claim. In this paper, we develop a fuzzy logic based expert system that can evaluate and identify the elements of fraud involved in insurance claims settlement. It helps to decide if the claims settled are genuine or their exists an element of fraud which needs substantive testing by an auditor. The proposed methodology has been illustrated with an example that tends to model insurance claims in general. The main contributions of this paper are the 'index of ambiguity' and the fuzzy-logic based methodology to detect an element of fraud in the previously settled insurance claims.
An Intrinsic Tactile Sensor for Underwater Robotics

Abstract In this paper, a novel intrinsic tactile sensor for underwater robotic applications is presented, along with some experimental results. The sensor is based on optoelectronic components and therefore its design is quite simple and reliable. Moreover, it is suitable to be adapted to different mechanical configurations, allowing its integration in e.g. the fingers of robotic hands or on the wrist of a robot arm. In this paper, the basic principle and the design of the sensor are presented, describing also some prototypes developed for underwater applications. Experimental data are presented and discussed to illustrate the main features of the sensors.
A Markov random walk under constraint for discovering overlapping communities in complex networks

The detection of overlapping communities in complex networks has motivated recent research in relevant fields. Aiming to address this problem, we propose a Markov-dynamics-based algorithm, called UEOC, which means ‘unfold and extract overlapping communities’. In UEOC, when identifying each natural community that overlaps, a Markov random walk method combined with a constraint strategy, which is based on the corresponding annealed network (degree conserving random network), is performed to unfold the community. Then, a cutoff criterion with the aid of a local community function, called conductance, which can be thought of as the ratio between the number of edges inside the community and those leaving it, is presented to extract this emerged community from the entire network. The UEOC algorithm depends on only one parameter whose value can be easily set, and it requires no prior knowledge of the hidden community structures. The proposed UEOC has been evaluated both on synthetic benchmarks and on some real-world networks, and has been compared with a set of competing algorithms. The experimental result has shown that UEOC is highly effective and efficient for discovering overlapping communities.
Characteristics of applications that support creativity

Creativity typically involves some novel change to a symbolic domain and the production of some artifact judged by domain experts, in some manner, to be creative [1, 2]. An understanding of basic principles and preexisting knowledge helps one know what, when, where, and how to tweak a pattern in order to produce something creative. Creative tweaks may be seen in art, in science, and indeed, in everyday life. The role of preexisting knowledge is recognized as critical to evaluation in one of the more formal mechanisms for recognizing creative inventions—patents. While patentable inventions must be sufficiently creative and novel, they must also be described well enough for someone skilled in the art to be able to build them. Having an environment where it is easy to learn, in which existing bodies of knowledge can be readily accessed, examined, visualized, related, and discussed, would seem to be a key component in enabling creativity. Shneiderman [7, 8] talks of these aspects in terms of a “genex framework” in which there are four phases for generating excellence: collect, relate, create, and donate. He also describes a number of primary activities that occur in those phases that could potentially be supported by computer tools. Computer tools can facilitate creativity on at least two fairly distinct levels: they can aid in knowledge gathering, knowledge sharing, knowledge integration, and ultimately, idea generation; and they can enable the generation of creative artifacts in a particular domain by providing critical functionality in clear, direct, and useful ways. The optimal computer tool will provide support on both of these levels and indeed, provide seamless integration between them. The Cognitive HCI department at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center has developed various tools and systems that could be differentiated by the nature of their target audiences and the kinds of activities in which the users are engaged. On the one hand, tools (the ITS system, [9]) were developed for the application designer/developer. The goal of these tools was to support the development of creative end-user systems. On the other hand, a number of highly used and wellreceived public access systems were designed and developed using these tools. Several of these systems were aimed at engendering creativity in their end users [3–6]. This work, spanning more than a decade, has helped yield insights into the kind of environment—both social and technological—that encourages and supports creativity [4].
UW-CSE-2007-0401 Interactive Video Object Annotation

We present interactive techniques for visually annotating independently moving objects in a video stream. Features in the video are automatically tracked and grouped in an off-line preprocess that enables later interactive manipulation and annotation. Examples of such annotations include speech and thought balloons, video graffiti, hyperlinks, and path arrows. Our system also employs a directmanipulation interface for random frame access using spatial constraints. This annotation interface can be employed in a variety of applications including surveillance, film and video editing, visual tagging, and authoring rich media such as hyperlinked video.
Differentiation-Dependent Energy Production and Metabolite Utilization: A Comparative Study on Neural Stem Cells, Neurons, and Astrocytes

While it is evident that the metabolic machinery of stem cells should be fairly different from that of differentiated neurons, the basic energy production pathways in neural stem cells (NSCs) or in neurons are far from clear. Using the model of in vitro neuron production by NE-4C NSCs, this study focused on the metabolic changes taking place during the in vitro neuronal differentiation. O2 consumption, H+ production, and metabolic responses to single metabolites were measured in cultures of NSCs and in their neuronal derivatives, as well as in primary neuronal and astroglial cultures. In metabolite-free solutions, NSCs consumed little O2 and displayed a higher level of mitochondrial proton leak than neurons. In stem cells, glycolysis was the main source of energy for the survival of a 2.5-h period of metabolite deprivation. In contrast, stem cell-derived or primary neurons sustained a high-level oxidative phosphorylation during metabolite deprivation, indicating the consumption of own cellular material for energy production. The stem cells increased O2 consumption and mitochondrial ATP production in response to single metabolites (with the exception of glucose), showing rapid adaptation of the metabolic machinery to the available resources. In contrast, single metabolites did not increase the O2 consumption of neurons or astrocytes. In “starving” neurons, neither lactate nor pyruvate was utilized for mitochondrial ATP production. Gene expression studies also suggested that aerobic glycolysis and rapid metabolic adaptation characterize the NE-4C NSCs, while autophagy and alternative glucose utilization play important roles in the metabolism of stem cell-derived neurons.