Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expert identification for multidisciplinary R&D project collaboration

A large-scale R&D project collaboration requires various areas of expertise, i.e, multidisciplinary, with multiple partners. Such R&D problems include global warming, emerging infectious diseases, and energy issues. One typical approach for identifying a group of expert candidates is to first come up with an initial expert and then use his/her referral to find additional experts. Hence the traditional process relies significantly on humans and their personal interrelationship. However with an increasing in the availability and accessibility of R&D information in electronic forms, one can apply techniques in the fields of information retrieval, natural language processing, and machine learning to automatically retrieve experts and their areas of expertise from such information sources. In this paper, we present an approach based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) method to discover experts and their associated areas of expertise from R&D bibliographic data. The LDA method could generate multiple hidden topics underlying the given data set. These topics are representatives for those multiple areas of expertise in which individual experts could be assigned into. As an illustration, we apply our approach to analyze abstracts from Compendex database in the domain of Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs). Our approach can help enhance the traditional expert identification process in term of topical coverage and unbiased selection of expert candidates.
Information Technology and Systems - III. Research Publications in Systems Development during 2000-2004

Although systems development research is at the core of the Information Systems discipline, some scholars call attention to a teaching and research gap in this area of IS. In this study, we examine the state of systems development research in IS by analyzing the articles published in three leading journals between 2000 and 2004. We propose a classification framework based on the type of research paradigm (design vs. explanatory) and the nature of the IT-artifact (conceptualization vs. instantiation). Our results show that about 20% of the articles published in this five year period are focused on systems development. In two of the three journals, there are comparable proportions of studies in the design research and in the explanatory paradigm. However, in all three publications most of the articles are focused on conceptual IT-artifacts, as opposed to instantiations. These findings are important for system development researchers when they choose journals to which to send their papers.
Suggested instruments for General Practitioners in countries with low schooling to screen for cognitive impairment in the elderly

ABSTRACT Background: General Practitioners (GPs) from underdeveloped countries apply cognitive impairment (CI) assessment tools translated and adapted to cultural setting from other idioms, mainly English. As schooling in elderly from underdeveloped countries tends to be relatively heterogeneous, it is necessary to establish normative and cut-off scores for these CI instruments that are based on studies conducted locally. Some CI screening instruments frequently used by Brazilian specialists in dementia were analyzed to determine which could be most useful to GPs in their working sets. Method: Two hundred forty-eight patients aged 65 years or older that had been assisted by GPs in a tertiary hospital in Brazil were evaluated. Based on the MMSE and/or Short-IQCODE scores, 52 probable cases were identified on the basis of clinical data, performances on the neuropsychological tests and questionnaires (Functional Assessment Questionnaire/FAQ, Category Verbal Fluency/CVF, Clock Drawing Test/CDT) and blood tests and brain CT. Results: The combination of a functional questionnaire with a cognitive instrument had higher sensitivity and specificity than using the instruments alone. A FAQ cut-off of 3 in conjunction with a CDT cut-off of 6 proved optimal (93% sensitivity and 92.5% specificity). A higher specificity (93.5%) was attained using a combination of the FAQ (cut-off of 3) with the CVF (cut-off of 10). Conclusions: For low schooling elderly, the combination of the FAQ and CVF represented a very simple method of increasing the chances of correct screening. For those with higher schooling, the combination of the FAQ and CDT was more suitable.
Tiamulin hydrogen fumarate--veterinary uses and HPLC method of determination in premixes and medicated feeding stuffs.

Approved antimicrobial substances were treated as feed additives and used also as growth promoters until 2006. Regulation No 1831/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2003 on additives for use in animal nutrition changed the situation and at the moment antibiotics in feeds, except coccidiostats and histomonostats, can be used only as medicated feedingstuff. Medicated feedingstuffs are produced only on prescription from approved premixes in authorized manufacturing place. In agreement with EU and Polish legislation, both production process and usage of medicated feedingstuff has to be strictly monitored and controlled. The main aims of the control process are determination of active ingredient concentration, homogeneity of the product and accordance with GMP. Among antimicrobials mainly used in veterinary medicine are tetracyclines, amoxicillin, tylosin, tiamulin and sulfonamides. Tiamulin hydrogen fumarate is widely used semisynthetic drug included in pleuromutilin class of antibiotics (1, 2). Its antibacterial properties are stronger than those of natural pleuromutilin, extracted from Pleurotus mutilus (Fr.) Sacc. and Pleurotus Passeckerianus Pil. (3). For a long period of time tiamulin was considered the only pleuromutilin antibiotic in use and in veterinary medicine exclusively. Lately two more drugs were added to this group: valnemulin in veterinary applications and retapamulin approved for human use in dermatological infections. Tiamulin is mainly used for swine and poultry but has also some application in cattle, goats and sheep treatment. Its antibacterial activity against Mycoplasma spp. , Gram positive bacteria such as streptococci and staphylococci and obligate anaerobes is well known. Tiamulin is a drug of choice in treatment of swine dysentery caused by Brachyspira hyodeysentreiae and bacterial pneumonia caused by Pasteurella multicida. It is also used in porcine intestinal adenomatosis (Lawsonia intracellularis), arthritis (Mycoplasma hyosynoviae, M. bovis) and chronic sinusitis (2n5). The mechanism of tiamulin bacteriostatic activity, as well as other pleuromutilins, is based on blockage of protein synthesis in bacterial cell. Thanks to its strong affinity to 23 rRNA in 50S ribosomal subunit tiamulin joins to peptidyl transferase centre during initiation of translation, inhibiting peptide bond formation at this point of the process (6, 7). This antibiotic does not affect peptide binding when elongation has started. Tiamulin resistance is rare but emerging and cross-resistance to tylosin and erythromycin occurs (2). It is probably due to mutations in ribosomal L3 protein as well as in 23rRNA itself, which leads to higher flexibility of peptidyl transferase centre region and ability to overcome tiamulin inhibition (6, 7). Tiamulin is a base sparingly soluble in water more often used as hydrogen fumarate salt, what increases its solubility dramatically. Diterpenic core of the molecule consists of three rings: cyclo-pen-
Anastasia Bolotnikova Articulated Object Tracking from Visual Sensory Data for Robotic Manipulation Master ’ s thesis ( 30 ECTP )

In order for a robot to manipulate an articulated object, it needs to know its state (i.e. its pose); that is to say: where and in which configuration it is. The result of the object’s state estimation is to be provided as a feedback to the control to compute appropriate robot motion and achieve the desired manipulation outcome. This is the main topic of this thesis, where articulated object state estimation is solved using visual feedback. Vision based servoing is implemented in a Quadratic Programming task space control framework to enable humanoid robot to perform articulated objects manipulation. We thoroughly developed our methodology for vision based articulated object state estimation on these bases. We demonstrate its efficiency by assessing it on several real experiments involving the HRP-4 humanoid robot. We also propose to combine machine learning and edge extraction techniques to achieve markerless, real-time and robust visual feedback for articulated object manipulation.
The investigation of the varactor diode as tuning element on reconfigurable antenna

In this paper, an efficient and simple design method for reconfigurable antenna by using a varactor diode is presented. This method allows designing the patch antenna with tunable centre frequency and a constant absolute bandwidth. The measured frequency response shows a good agreement with the simulated results. The antenna operating frequency range covers from 1.915 to 2.102 GHz. This investigation provides an alternative solution for reconfigurable antenna particularly in any wireless communication systems, especially in 4G technology.
A decision-theoretic framework for adaptive management of epidemiological intervention

Increased national concern over the possibility of sudden and wide-spread outbreak of infectious disease motivates the modeling of pathogen transmission for various characterizations of the underlying population structure. A critical, but often overlooked, component to preparation of this sort is the development of a methodology for defining optimal treatment policies to be deployed in the event of such an outbreak. In realistic scenarios, such a policy must weigh the costs of available treatments (e.g. vaccination or quarantine) against the current state of the epidemic, in terms of numbers of susceptible and infected individuals, and current estimates of the parameters of the transmission model. We present a decision-theoretic framework for adaptive management of epidemiological interventions. We derive an expression for the optimal adaptive policy conditional upon current information about the epidemic, evaluation of which is computed using stochastic dynamic programming. We present simulation studies to demonstrate the advantages, in terms of reduced expected loss and more efficient resource management, of the optimal adaptive policy over the optimal non-adaptive policy.
Hb 'T LANGE LAND [β136(H14)Gly → Arg]: A NEW HEMOGLOBIN VARIANT DESCRIBED IN A DUTCH PATIENT OF CHINESE ORIGIN

Carriers of hemoglobin (Hb) variants that are not associated with dominant phenotypes, are usually diagnosed by chance during laboratory analysis. The detection methods are mainly Hb electrophoresis or Hb chromatography that separate the Hb fraction by their speci®c electric charge or chromatographic behavior. However, many variants behave in a similar way on both separation methods because different abnormal Hbs often have very similar electric charge or hydrophobic-hydrophilic interaction. To date, molecular characterization of Hb variants can be rapidly achieved by DNA sequencing. We describe the hemoglobinopathy analysis performed on a family who was sent to our laboratory by the department of Clinical Chemistry of the 't Lange Land Hospital, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands, where a formal diagnosis of Hb S carrier status, done elsewhere, was found to be inconsistent. The proband, a Dutch male of Chinese ancestry, aged 51, his wife and son, were thoroughly studied at the hematological, biochemical, and molecular level. Hematology was performed according to standard procedures (1). Genomic DNA was isolated by selective lysis and high salt extraction (2). Molecular analysis of the b-globin gene was done by direct sequencing of polymerase chain reaction HEMOGLOBIN, 25(3), 331±336 (2001)
Spatial correlated information based batch mode active learning method for remote sensing image classification

Batch-mode active learning approaches are dedicated to the problem of training sample set selection, where a batch of unlabeled samples is queried at each iteration by considering both uncertainty and diversity criteria. However, the current batch-mode approaches do not consider spatial correlation between adjacent queries pixels, thus they spend some unnecessary time costs and are accompanied by relatively high annotation costs. This paper employs mean shift segmentation to describe the spatial correlation information which is used to select most diverse samples in the geographic space and to automatically label part of the pixels that need querying. As a result, the labeling costs can be lowered sharply. Meanwhile, the number of new queries in each iteration is adaptive to the distribution of the uncertain samples, which can reduce the iterations. Experimental results obtained in the classification of a hyperspectral image confirm the effectiveness of the proposed technique.
Development of a generic thresholding algorithm for the delineation of 18FDG-PET-positive tissue: application to the comparison of three thresholding models

An iterative generic algorithm has been developed to compare three thresholding models used to delineate gross tumour volume on 18F-FDG PET images. 3D volume was extracted and characteristic parameters were measured. Three fitting models using different parameters were studied: model 1 (volume, contrast), model 2 (contrast) and model 3 (SUV). The calibration was performed using a cylindrical phantom filled with hot spheres. To validate the models, two other phantoms were used. The calibration procedure showed a better fitting model for model 1 (R2 from 0.94 to 1.00) than for model 3 (0.95) and model 2 (0.69). The validation study shows that model 3 yielded large volume measurement errors. Models 1 and 2 gave close results with no significant differences. Model 2 was preferred because it presents less error dispersion and needs fewer characteristic parameters, making it easier to implement. Our results show the importance of developing a generic algorithm to compare the performances of fitting models objectively and to validate results on other phantoms than the ones used during the calibration process to avoid methodological biases.
Compressed Sensing Method Application in Image Denoising

In order to improve the work of a single path network reliability failure case, this chapter put forward a set of a single backup path algorithm based on the path. In this algorithm, using two disjoint paths as work path to transmit data, and USES the path does not intersect with the job of a set the path as the backup path. Then, this algorithm, is proposed based on a single - a single backup path algorithm of shortest path set to ensure data under the case of the second work path of effective transmission. Theoretical derivation and numerical simulation results show that in a single work path failure cases, and the calculation of DMP - compared to BP algorithm, this scheme can greatly improve network reliability, and save the network resources.
Hepatitis C Virus Variants with Decreased Sensitivity to Direct-Acting Antivirals (DAAs) Were Rarely Observed in DAA-Naive Patients prior to Treatment

ABSTRACT The prevalence of naturally occurring hepatitis C virus (HCV) variants that are less sensitive to direct-acting antiviral (DAA) inhibitors has not been fully characterized. We used population sequence analysis to assess the frequency of such variants in plasma samples from 3,447 DAA-naive patients with genotype 1 HCV. In general, HCV variants with lower-level resistance (3- to 25-fold increased 50% inhibitor concentration [IC50]) to telaprevir were observed as the dominant species in 0 to 3% of patients, depending on the specific variant, whereas higher-level resistant variants (>25-fold-increased IC50) were not observed. Specific variants resistant to NS5A inhibitors were predominant in up to 6% of patients. Most variants resistant to nucleo(s/t)ide active-site NS5B polymerase inhibitors were not observed, whereas variants resistant to non-nucleoside allosteric inhibitors were observed in up to 18% of patients. The presence of DAA-resistant variants in NS5A, NS5B, or NS3 (including telaprevir-resistant variants), in baseline samples of treatment-naive patients receiving a telaprevir-based regimen in phase 3 studies did not affect the sustained viral response (SVR). Treatment-naive patients with viral populations containing the telaprevir-resistant variants NS3 V36M, T54S, or R155K at baseline achieved a 74% SVR rate, whereas patients with no resistant variants detected prior to treatment achieved a 76% SVR rate. The effect of specific resistant variant frequency on response to various DAA treatments in different patient populations, including interferon nonresponders, should be further studied.
Root-Secreted Nicotianamine from Arabidopsis halleri Facilitates Zinc Hypertolerance by Regulating Zinc Bioavailability1[W][OPEN]

Root secretion of nicotianamine from zinc-hyperaccumulating Arabidopsis halleri facilitates zinc hypertolerance through coordinating zinc uptake and iron homeostasis in roots. Hyperaccumulators tolerate and accumulate extraordinarily high concentrations of heavy metals. Content of the metal chelator nicotianamine (NA) in the root of zinc hyperaccumulator Arabidopsis halleri is elevated compared with nonhyperaccumulators, a trait that is considered to be one of the markers of a hyperaccumulator. Using metabolite-profiling analysis of root secretions, we found that excess zinc treatment induced secretion of NA in A. halleri roots compared with the nonhyperaccumulator Arabidopsis thaliana. Metal speciation analysis further revealed that the secreted NA forms a stable complex with Zn(II). Supplying NA to a nonhyperaccumulator species markedly increased plant zinc tolerance by decreasing zinc uptake. Therefore, NA secretion from A. halleri roots facilitates zinc hypertolerance through forming a Zn(II)-NA complex outside the roots to achieve a coordinated zinc uptake rate into roots. Secretion of NA was also found to be responsible for the maintenance of iron homeostasis under excess zinc. Together our results reveal root-secretion mechanisms associated with hypertolerance and hyperaccumulation.
DEVELOPMENT OF INSERTION DEVICE MAGNETIC CHARACTERIZATION SYSTEMS AT LNLS

This paper describes a set of magnetic measurement systems employed in the development of insertion devices at LNLS (Brazilian Synchrotron Light Source). They are: rotating coil (which can also operate as a flip-coil), spatial field mapping using Hall probes and parallel coils (Helmholtz configuration) for magnetic blocks characterization. Although such techniques are well established, strict specifications imposed by the beam dynamics on the magnetic field quality, led to a detailed analysis of the sources of error and their minimization. All three systems have already been tested and showed excellent accuracy and repeatability when compared to typical values found in the scientific literature.
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A CORONARY HEART DISEASE DECISION SUPPORT TOOL

We are developing a decision support tool to help clinicians and policy makers estimate the impact of various coronary heart disease (CHD) treatments on disease outcomes for populations. We have created seven modules that correspond to states commonly encountered with CHD, that is, congestive heart failure, tachyarrhythmia, stable angina pectoris, acute coronary syndrome, bradycardia, postmyocardial infarction, and postcoronary artery bypass grafting, and a healthy individual module. Within each module, we created event-decision- intervention-outcome flow pathways to simulate risk of a clinical event and the expected outcome as the result of a particular intervention. We will combine disease state probability estimates based on the experience of the Olmsted County, Minnesota, population and estimates of intervention efficacy based on clinical trial data to estimate the impact of interventions on a population. We plan to make this tool available to the public through the internet. “This project was made possible through a Cooperative Agreement between the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine (ATPM), award # TS-0892; its contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the CDC or ATPM. Supported in part by an unrestricted research grant from McNeil Consumer Healthcare. ”
Enhancing Patient Education Through Clinical Nurse Specialist Collaboration

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to describe a collaborative clinical nurse specialist (CNS) project to enhance the patient education provided by registered nurses across 7 medical nursing units in an acute care hospital. Background: Electronic data reviews assisted the medical CNSs with identifying a deficit in using appropriate education plans and documentation of patient education. Description of the Project: The interventions implemented included the creation of new patient education brochures, updating the electronic system to enhance nurses’ ability to provide patient education materials and to simplify documentation, creating a video-on-demand education channel, and ensuring that patient education materials were easily accessible. Outcome: Postassessment results showed that nurses’ reported use of disease-specific education plan increased 33%. The staff’s perception of the importance of documenting patient education provided also increased 9%. Conclusion: This project demonstrates CNSs’ ability to design, develop, and implement a systematic and structured process to promote a consistent way for medical nurses to utilize the best disease-specific patient education resources. Implications: With hospital stays being shorter and patients more acutely ill, partnering with the patients in learning how to manage their care as they transition from the hospital to home is key to help prevent hospital readmissions.
Ten-Year Experience With Duodenum and Organ-Preserving Pancreatic Head Resection (Büchler-Farkas Modification) in the Surgical Treatment of Chronic Pancreatitis

Objectives: Chronic pancreatitis, a benign, inflammatory process, can cause enlargement of the pancreatic head, which is accompanied by severe pain and weight loss and often leads to a significant reduction in the quality of life (QoL). Methods: Our clinical experience relates to the results attained with duodenum and organ-preserving pancreatic head resection in 160 patients during a 10-year period. The QoL is assessed during the follow-up period by using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality-of-Life Questionnaire. Results: Two reoperations were required in consequence of anastomosis bleeding and small bowel obstruction, but no mortality was noted in the postoperative period. The duration of hospitalization ranged between 7 and 12 days. The mean follow-up time was 5.3 years (range, 0.5-10.0 years). The late mortality rate was 6.9%. The QoL improved in 89% of the cases. One hundred thirty-three of the patients became complaint-free, whereas 16 displayed moderate symptoms, and the weight increased by a median of 13.4 kg (range, 4-30 kg). The postoperative endocrine functions remained in almost the same stage as preoperatively. Conclusion: Our 10-year experience clearly demonstrates that this duodenum and organ-preserving pancreatic head resection technique is a safe and effective procedure, which should be preferred in the surgical treatment of the complications of chronic pancreatitis.
Constructing orientation adaptive quadtrees

A novel spatial data structure called the orientation adaptive quadtree (OAQ) is presented. The data structure takes advantage oflarge second-order moments of inertia of planar objects by aligning the quad tree axes with the object's principal axis of inertia. This provides a reduction in the number of leaf nodes necessary to store the quadtree compared to quadtrees aligned with the object coordinate axes. An efficient method for constructing OAQs for planar graphs described by edge vertices is given, along with a discussion of some test results.