Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clindamycin versus trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole for uncomplicated skin infections.

BACKGROUND Skin and skin-structure infections are common in ambulatory settings. However, the efficacy of various antibiotic regimens in the era of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is unclear. METHODS We enrolled outpatients with uncomplicated skin infections who had cellulitis, abscesses larger than 5 cm in diameter (smaller for younger children), or both. Patients were enrolled at four study sites. All abscesses underwent incision and drainage. Patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive either clindamycin or trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) for 10 days. Patients and investigators were unaware of the treatment assignments and microbiologic test results. The primary outcome was clinical cure 7 to 10 days after the end of treatment. RESULTS A total of 524 patients were enrolled (264 in the clindamycin group and 260 in the TMP-SMX group), including 155 children (29.6%). One hundred sixty patients (30.5%) had an abscess, 280 (53.4%) had cellulitis, and 82 (15.6%) had mixed infection, defined as at least one abscess lesion and one cellulitis lesion. S. aureus was isolated from the lesions of 217 patients (41.4%); the isolates in 167 (77.0%) of these patients were MRSA. The proportion of patients cured was similar in the two treatment groups in the intention-to-treat population (80.3% in the clindamycin group and 77.7% in the TMP-SMX group; difference, -2.6 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -10.2 to 4.9; P=0.52) and in the populations of patients who could be evaluated (466 patients; 89.5% in the clindamycin group and 88.2% in the TMP-SMX group; difference, -1.2 percentage points; 95% CI, -7.6 to 5.1; P=0.77). Cure rates did not differ significantly between the two treatments in the subgroups of children, adults, and patients with abscess versus cellulitis. The proportion of patients with adverse events was similar in the two groups. CONCLUSIONS We found no significant difference between clindamycin and TMP-SMX, with respect to either efficacy or side-effect profile, for the treatment of uncomplicated skin infections, including both cellulitis and abscesses. (Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00730028.).
What threshold for adjuvant therapy in older breast cancer patients?

PURPOSE To consider the question of when to prescribe adjuvant treatment for elderly breast cancer patients, particularly when comorbidities are present. Knowledge of the threshold relapse risks above which adjuvant treatment is worth prescribing would enhance decision making. PATIENTS AND METHODS A Markov analysis of data from the medical literature was conducted. Patients aged 65 to 85 years were considered, along with three levels of comorbidity. The threshold risk of relapse at 10 years (RR10), at which time treatment provides absolute reduction or reduction of an absolute 1% in relapse or mortality, was evaluated. RESULTS The threshold RR10 for an absolute reduction in mortality risk by adjuvant treatment was low through the age of 85 years. However, for an absolute 1% reduction, the effect of treatment on relapse and the effect of treatment on mortality increasingly diverged. The threshold RR10 for an absolute 1% reduction in relapse risk remained fairly low (5% to 6% for tamoxifen, 12% to 19% for chemotherapy). The threshold RR10 for an absolute 1% reduction in mortality risk, although starting close to the RR10 for an absolute 1% reduction in relapse risk, rose sharply. For tamoxifen, the difference between the two was 4% for an average 65-year-old, 6% at the age of 75 years, and 15% at the age of 85 years. For chemotherapy, the differences were 6%, 12%, and 30%, respectively. Similarly, thresholds increased with increasing comorbidity. In older and sicker patients, the maximum benefit was reached after 5 years rather than 10 years. CONCLUSION Older breast cancer patients can expect a reduction in relapse that is fairly similar to that of younger patients. However, the effect on mortality diverges markedly, and attention should be paid to this difference in clinical decision making. Comorbidity should be considered in recommendations for adjuvant treatment, including clinical practice guidelines.
Double‐blind randomized controlled study of phosphatidylserine in senile demented patients

A double‐blind randomized controlled study was conducted in 42 hospitalized demented patients to evaluate the therapeutical effect of phosphatidylserine (BS‐PS). Half of the patients received 3x100 mg of this product, and the other half a placebo of the same appearance. After a wash‐out period, prescription lasted for six weeks. To evaluate the patients, two distinct rating scales were used: the Crichton Scale and an original one (Peri Scale) designed in our geriatric unit (see Appendix). A circle crossing test was added. Out of the 35 patients who completed the trial, 18 had received placebo and 17 BC‐PS. The results indicated a trend toward improvement in the BC‐PS treated patients and an analysis of covariance showed a significant (p<0.05) treatment effect on the Peri Scale. The results at the end of the treatment period were compared with those obtained three weeks later. Here again there was a statistically significant difference in the Peri Scale results, indicating that modifications are drug‐related. The behavioral improvement shown in this study is in agreement with experimental studies on aged animals.
Dynamic Cross-Talk Analysis among TNF-R, TLR-4 and IL-1R Signalings to IKK in TNFα-induced Immune System

動機 系統生物學在近年來日益蓬勃發展，提供了研究學者們用全面性的觀點來探討許多生物系統的特性。 然而在這門領域中，仍然缺乏一個系統化的方法去利用高產量的實驗數據重建不同時期之動態隨機蛋白質交互連結網路，以進行不同信號傳遞途徑之間的交互作用分析。 結果 在這篇研究當中，我們嘗試整合了由資料庫所得的蛋白質交互作用聯結來建構初步的蛋白質關聯性網路。 接著我們利用一個隨機的動態模型結合受到促進腫瘤壞死因子刺激下的人體靜脈血管內皮細胞之基因表現量，來重建一個更具生物意義的蛋白質關聯性網路，並用它來描繪先天免疫系統在人體內作用的進程。 在此，我們提出一個創新的信號傳遞交互作用分析方法，用來評估TNF-R, TLR-4以及IL-1R傳遞至IKK信號途徑中可能的核心蛋白質因子。 在這些互相作用的信號傳遞途徑之中，我們發現了一個特殊的領結狀信號傳遞結構，這種結構有助於維持生物網路的強健性、信號傳遞的調節並根據不同的外來訊號刺激產生相對應的免疫反應。 此外，許多訊號傳遞和回授控制的系統特性也在我們所建構的蛋白質關聯性網路中可以觀察到。 結論 本篇研究提供了一個根據隨機的動態模型來重建對特定刺激訊號之下的訊號傳遞網路，並幫助生物學家能夠對免疫系統潛在的防禦機制有更深一層的了解。 除了免疫系統之外，這個方法亦能適用於不同物種、不同刺激之下的信號傳遞網路分析。 當未來實驗技術的進步，可以讓我們偵測大範圍的蛋白質表現量以及獲得更多連續時間點的數據時，本篇所提出的方法將會具有更高的可靠度與真實性。
Robust people counting in video surveillance: Dataset and system

As an important application in civilian surveillance, pedestrian counting is challenging due to the occlusion and cluttered background. In this paper, we present an efficient people counting system based on regression and template matching. This method can effectively overcome the shortcomings of pedestrian detecting and tracking-based method and feature regression-based method. At the same time, we also introduce a challenging and practical public dataset named CASIA Pedestrian Counting Dataset. It contains richly annotated video and images captured from daily surveillance scenes. Experimental results on the proposed dataset show that our counting system is robust and accurate.
Young Children's Participation in Everyday Family and Community Activity

Patterns of participation in everyday family and community activities are described for children from birth to 6 years of age. Parents or other primary caregivers completed a survey of either family life or community life as sources of children's learning opportunities and experiences. Rates of children's participation in 50 family activities and 50 community activities at different ages were identified and analyzed in terms of similarities and differences in participation patterns. Findings indicated considerable variability in involvement in 100 family and community activities by young children of different ages. Implications for using everyday family and community activities as sources of enriched learning opportunities that enhance children's development are discussed.
VIDEO DATABASE FOR FACE RECOGNITION

This paper deals with video sequences database design and assembly for face recognition system working under specific limiting conditions. Features used for recognition have to be insensitive to surroundings influences as scenario 1 , scene content and illumination, face dimensions and pose, image resolution etc. Since current face recognition algorithms are partially independent on surroundings and it is not easy to increase substantially face recognition systems performance, alternative approach to performance increase is to limit general operating conditions – surroundings. This could be achieved by using training and testing databases close to expected operating condition of face recognition system. Assembled database is intended for development and testing of face recognition system integrated in access control system. Video data were taken in an indoor environment by video surveillance cameras of various video resolutions. Database contains 5115 images of 275 human subjects. Face detection is the first step in face recognition, thus face detection system influences performance of face recognition. Therefore assembled database has been used for various face detection algorithms evaluation. In this paper test results of Viola-Jones based face detector providing best results are presented. Test results show the influence of scenario and illuminating conditions on the performance of face detection system.
Unequal error protection codes for wavelet video transmission over W-CDMA, AWGN, and Rayleigh fading channels

The unequal error protection (UEP) codes with wavelet-based algorithm for video compression over wide-band code division multiple access (W-CDMA), additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and Rayleigh fading channels are analysed. The utilization of Wavelets has come out to be a powerful method for compress video sequence. The wavelet transform compression technique has shown to be more appropriate to high quality video applications, producing better quality output for the compressed frames of video. A spatially scalable video coding framework of MPEG2 in which motion correspondences between successive video frames are exploited in the wavelet transform domain. The basic motivation for our coder is that motion fields are typically smooth that can be efficiently captured through a multiresolutional framework. Wavelet decomposition is applied to video frames and the coefficients at each level are predicted from the coarser level through backward motion compensation. The proposed algorithms of the embedded zero-tree wavelet (EZW) coder and the 2-D wavelet packet transform (2-D WPT) are investigated.
Model-Based Joint Motion and Structure Estimation from Stereo Images

In this paper we integrate motion and structure estimation in order to exploit their coherence. We propose an algorithm that uses models for object surfaces and their motion and estimates the model parameters using the image intensity matching criterion. The visible scene surface is represented with a parametrically deformable, spatially adaptive, wireframe model. Object motion is first modeled using the well-known rigid motion assumption along with the quaternion rotation representation. Nonrigid motion modeling using the finite element technique is also investigated as an alternative to rigid motion modeling or as a refinement of it. A functional containing image matching and surface smoothness constraints is minimized with respect to the unknown model parameters. A discontinuity detection scheme allowing deactivation of smoothness constraints across object boundaries, is investigated. A regularization scheme using a coarse to fine strategy is employed.
A conceptual framework for community detection, characterisation and membership in a social internetworking scenario

Social internetworking systems are becoming a challenging new reality; they group together multiple, and possibly heterogenous, social networks. The typical problems of social network research become much more complex in a social internetworking context. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework, and an underlying model, to handle some of these problems, namely community detection, characterisation and membership in a social internetworking scenario. In order to face them, we must preliminarily investigate a further problem, i.e., user similarity detection.
Partial Data Resolving Power of Conductivity Imaging from Boundary Measurements

In this paper we consider resolution estimates for a linearized inverse conductivity problem with partial data. Our purpose is to precisely describe the effect of the limited-view aspect on the resolving power of the measurements in the presence of measurement noise. We first show that in the shallow probing regime, where the inclusion is close to the boundary of the background medium, we can resolve for any signal-to-noise ratio a sufficiently shallow perimeter perturbation of a conductivity inclusion on the overlap of the source and receiver apertures. Then we provide explicit formulas for the modes that can be resolved and the resolution measure for a given signal-to-noise ratio in the deep probing regime, where the radius of the inclusion is small.
Position tracking in electrical drives with elastic coupling using model predictive control

This paper presents a design methodology for optimal position control in electrical drives with mechanical elasticity subject to safety and physical constraints on torque and speed variables. The control problem is formulated within the framework of model predictive control (MPC) which ensures that the drive's operational limitations are directly accounted for in the control problem formulation so that any potential constraint violations are anticipated and prevented. An efficient closed-form solution of the MPC problem is also developed which enables the reduction of the real-time computational complexity to a simple look-up table search. Experimental results carried out on a pilot-scale dual-mass drive demonstrate that the proposed controller is very effective in tracking arbitrary position references while meeting the demanding drive constraints requirements during operation.
Time-frequency masking for convolutive and noisy mixtures

Time-frequency masking is a suitable tool for speech enhancement and source separation of speech signals. This paper presents an efficient method to determine the time-frequency masks for two speech signals based on two microphone signals in a noisy and reverberant environment. A two-stage processing is proposed. In the first stage two linear filters are adapted using the LMS algorithm. In the second stage the time-frequency masks are determined based on the transfer functions of the adaptive filters. The presented simulation results verify that the time-frequency masks are well approximated.
A P300-Based Brain–Computer Interface for Chinese Character Input

ABSTRACT The majority of previously developed assistive communication brain–computer interface systems have primarily focused on languages that are written in alphabetic scripts. However, languages that are written in logographic scripts, such as those in Chinese hanzi (or sinograms), pose a challenge for the implementation of visual spelling systems because it is impossible to simultaneously display thousands of items in a stimulus matrix of a reasonable size. In this study, a P300 visual spelling system that uses a novel method to input Chinese sinograms developed with a Hanyu Pinyin-based method is presented. This method transcribes a Chinese Pinyin into initial consonant and vowel components according to its Mandarin pronunciation. In this paradigm, each sinogram is input by selecting the initial consonant and then the vowel components and subsequently selecting the sinogram itself. Ten healthy subjects participated in the study and achieved an average offline accuracy of 92.6% with a mean information transfer rate of 39.2 bits/min and an average online input speed of one sinogram per 43.9 s. The preliminary results presented here indicated that the online input of Chinese text using a Pinyin-based visual speller is feasible.
Infrared reflectance of thin aluminum nitride films on various substrates

The measured room‐temperature infrared reflectance at near‐normal incidence of thin AlN films deposited by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition on various substrates is compared with calculated spectra based on Lorentz oscillator models for the reststrahl regions with parameters obtained from the literature. The effects of film and substrate anisotropy and non‐normal incidence are included. The contribution of AlN can be analyzed even when the substrate and/or a thin overlayer have overlapping reflection bands. It is possible to obtain information on the thickness and other properties of the AlN films.
Perioperative medicine: NHLBI working group deliberations and recommendations.

R S URGICAL TREATMENT OF disease has a substantial and largely unrecognized impact on health care. Approximately 00,000 patients undergo surgery daily in the United States lone, costing $450 billion annually. Although effective, surical therapy is not without risk, with serious adverse events ccurring in more than 1 million patients per year. Furtherore, given the growing dominance of Medicare-eligible paients over the next 2 decades, the number of patients referred or surgery will increase by one fourth, the associated cost by wice that, and the cost of in-hospital and long-term complicaions by double that again. Another piece of this difficult roblem is the evolving societal expectation that older patients hould be entitled to curative surgical therapy, which may nable better quality of life. Therefore, unless seriously and omprehensively addressed now, the present surgical burden ill quickly evolve into a surgical crisis before even rudimenary paradigms for solution have been suggested—let alone ested, validated, and implemented. Recognizing such, the National Heart, Blood and Lung Intitute (NHLBI) initiated an 18-month effort to address this ormidable problem, convening a Working Group of 45 recogized experts representing diverse disciplines: medicine (genral, internal), surgery (general, vascular, cardiac), critical care medical, surgical), subspecialties (cardiology, pulmonary, nehrology, anesthesiology), government (NHLBI, Food and rug Administration), health economics, care providers, and pecialties societies (Appendix). The aims of the Working roup (Table 1) were first, to reassess the significance of the urgical burden problem, then to delineate questions critical to ts solution, and finally to formulate a comprehensive, multiisciplinary approach to solution. The results are presented here n an effort to call global attention to this issue, thereby eliciting overnment, corporate, institutional, and public interest in its olution. c
Isolation and characterization of outer and inner membranes of Selenomonas ruminantium: lipid compositions

The isolation procedure and characterization of the outer and inner membranes from Selenomonas ruminatium cells, a strictly anaerobic bacterium, are described. The metabolic fate of [14C]decanoate incorporated into the outer and inner membranes was examined. The percent distribution of radioactivities in the outer and inner membranes was about 40 and 50% of the total incorporated activity, respectively. Approximately 47% of the radioactivity incorporated into the outer membrane was recovered in the phospholipid fraction, and the remaining radioactivity was found in both aqueous and phenol layers when the outer membrane was treated with phenol-water. In contrast to [14C]decanoate, the percent distribution of [3H]glycerol in the outer and inner membranes was about 25 and 70% of the total incorporated activity, respectively. Most of the assimilated 3H was located in the phospholipid fraction of both membranes. However, no significant label was detected in either the protein or cell wall fraction. The following observations were made concerning lipid compositions in the outer and inner membranes by chemical and isotopic analyses. (i) The outer and inner membranes contained no detectable phosphatidyl glycerol or cardiolipin. (ii) A prominent radioactive compound, designated band III lipid, was found mainly in the outer membrane as a major radioactive spot when cells were grown with [14C]decanoate. This lipid contained phosphorus, 2-keto-3-deoxyoctulosonic acid and 3-OH fatty acid but no detectable glycerol. This lipid was identified tentatively to be 2-keto-3-deoxyoctulosonic acid-lipid A. (iii) Although the ubiquity of phosphatidyl ethanolamine plasmalogen in both outer and inner membranes was confirmed, the occurrence of the molecular species of phosphatidyl ethanolamine plasmalogen was quite different in the outer and inner membranes.
MICROSATELLITE MEASURES OF INBREEDING: A META‐ANALYSIS

Abstract Meta‐analyses of published and unpublished correlations between phenotypic variation and two measures of genetic variation at microsatellite loci, multilocus heterozygosity (MLH) and mean d2, revealed that the strength of these associations are generally weak (mean r < 0.10). Effects on life‐history trait variation were significantly greater than zero for both measures over all reported effect sizes (r= 0. 0856 and 0.0479 for MLH and mean d2, respectively), whereas effects on morphometric traits were not (r= 0.0052 and r= 0.0038), which is consistent with the prediction that life‐history traits exhibit greater inbreeding depression than morphometric traits. Effect sizes reported using mean d2 were smaller and more variable than those reported using MLH, suggesting that MLH may be a better metric for capturing inbreeding depression most of the time. However, analyses of paired effect sizes reported using both measures from the same data did not differ significantly. Several lines of evidence suggest that published effects sizes are upwardly biased. First, effect sizes from published studies were significantly higher than those reported in unpublished studies. Second, fail‐safe numbers for reported effect sizes were generally quite low, with the exception of correlations between MLH and life‐history traits. Finally, the slope of the regression of effect size on sample size was negative for most sets of traits. Taken together, these results suggest that studies designed to detect inbreeding depression on a life‐history trait using microsatellites will need to sample in excess of 600 individuals to detect an average effect size (r= 0.10) with reasonable statistical power (0.80). Very few published studies have used samples sizes approaching this value.
Security issues in an EDI environment

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) means electronic transmission, processing, and storage of commercial, business, or trade related documents. The paper surveys the security threats posed to an EDI system, and outlines the techniques and services used to counter these threats. Most importantly, the paper has gone into great depth to address an EDI specific security requirement-non repudiation of receipt. The current related work done to support this service is first discussed, and then a new and simple, but effective protocol to achieve non repudiation of receipt on a distributed and heterogeneous system platform is proposed.