Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of PET/CT to Detect Bone Marrow Involvement in Hodgkin Lymphoma

Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL) comprises 12% of all lymphomas and 1% of all malignancies (1). It is possible to achieve cure with modern first line treatment modalities in about 90% of patients. However treatment fails in 10% of early stage and 30% of advanced stage disease. Cure rates are around 50% in relapsed disease, in extra-nodal disease and in patients relapsing early after treatment of advanced stage disease (2-5). Correct staging is necessary for an effective treatment plan (6,7). Bone marrow involvement (BMI) is one of the most important prognostic factors in lymphomas. BMI corresponds to stage IV disease according to the Ann Arbor staging system (8). Staging of HL is based on the Cotswold’s modification of the Ann-Arbor system (8,9) and commonly includes computerized tomography (CT) and bone marrow biopsy (9). BMI is detected in 5-14% of patients with HL (10,11). Unilateral bone marrow biopsy (BMB) performed from dorsal iliac crest is considered as standard and performed routinely during staging (12,13). However main disadvantages of BMB are its interventional nature and it allows only a limited region of bone marrow to be investigated. A previous study reported 80% false negativity of a unilateral iliac crest biopsy compared with a bilateral biopsy in patients with lymphoma (14). Imaging Objective: Bone marrow involvement (BMI) is a significant component of staging of Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL). Unilateral bone marrow biopsy (BMB) from dorsal iliac bone is the standard method to determine BMI. Positron emission tomography/computerized tomography (PET/CT) is recommended as a complimentary technique to determine BMI and to evaluate response to treatment. The aim of this study is to determine whether PET/CT can replace BMB to detect BMI in patients with HL. Methods: A total of 159 patients diagnosed as having HL were evaluated retrospectively. One hundred and four patients who met the criteria were included in the study. BMB and PET/CT were performed on all patients during initial staging. Results: Of the 104 patients, 44 (42.3%) and 17 (16.3%) had BMI in PET/CT and BMB respectively. All patients who had BMI in BMB also had involvement in PET/CT. BMB did not detect BMI in 27 patients who had BMI in PET/CT. All 27 patients had partial or complete remission on PET/CT performed at the end of treatment. This finding was regarded as a relative indicator for BMI. PET/CT had a sensitivity and negative predictive value of 100%, specificity of 68.9% and accuracy rate of 74% to determine BMI. Conclusion: We observed that PET/CT and BMB were compatible to determine BMI in patients diagnosed with HL. Unilateral BMB may result false negative especially in cases with focal involvement. Therefore, PET/CT should be considered as a complimentary technique to determine BMI. Staging should be reevaluated in patients who have BMI in PET/CT and a negative BMB treatment should be planned accordingly.
Limitations of On Demand Secure Routing

Routing in mobile ad hoc networks is an open and active area of research. Recently, many have attempted to add value to routing protocols by improving efficiency and security of these protocols. In this paper, we show that a whole class of routing protocols for dynamic networks is vulnerable to a subtle attack. We illustrate this attack on several well known protocols and describe the fundamental properties of this attack and of the protocols that are vulnerable to it. We also propose potential approaches to overcoming the vulnerability that we address.
Reliability of rating synthesized hypernasal speech signals in connected speech and vowels

The study investigated whether valid hypernasal stimuli (i.e., with higher inter-rater and intra-rater reliability) could be synthesized by using a Klatt synthesizer (Klatt & Klatt, 1990). Two sets of synthesis parameters (i.e., the high-level [HL] synthesis parameter and the low-level [LL] synthesis parameters) in the synthesizer were used to create five sets of Cantonese stimuli (i.e., the HL sentence, vowel /i/ and /  / and the LL vowel /i/ and /  /). Eleven Cantonese speaking speech therapists were asked to listen to the stimuli and rated whether they detected hypernasality. The result showed that all /i/ stimuli from low-level synthesis parameters and 70% connected speech stimuli from the high-level synthesis parameter were rated as hypernasal. Paired comparison task and perceptual rating task were administered in order to measure the severity of the synthesized hypernasal signals. In addition to the high intra-rater agreement (ranged from 68.60% to 88.64%) and the ICC values (ranged from 0.662 to 0.948), the current study suggested that the low-level synthesis parameters were said to be a set of preferable parameters for synthesizing hypernasal stimuli and both connected speech and vowel /i/ were preferable than vowel /  / in perceptual evaluation of hypernasality. Research implications are discussed.
Evaluation of Algorithm Performance on Identifying OA

This is a second signal-detection analysis of the accuracy of a robot in detecting open access (OA) articles (by checking by hand how many of the articles the robot tagged OA were really OA, and vice versa). A first analysis, on a smaller sample (Biology: 100 OA, 100 non-OA), had found a detectability (d') of 2.45 and bias of 0.52 (hits 93%, false positives 16%; Biology %OA: 14%; OA citation advantage: 50%). The present analysis on a larger sample (Biology: 272 OA, 272 non-OA) found a detectability of 0.98 and bias of 0.78 (hits 77%, false positives, 41%; Biology %OA: 16%; OA citation advantage: 64%) An analysis in Sociology (177 OA, 177 non-OA) found near-chance detectability (d' = 0.11) and an OA bias of 0.99 (hits, 54%, false alarms, 49%; prior robot estimate Sociology %OA: 23%; present estimate 15%). It was not possible from these data to estimate the Sociology OA citation advantage. CONCLUSIONS: The robot significantly overcodes for OA. In Biology 2002, 40% of identified OA was in fact OA. In Sociology 2000, only 18% of identified OA was in fact OA. Missed OA was lower: 12% in Biology 2002 and 14% in Sociology 2000. The sources of the error are impossible to determine from the present data, since the algorithm did not capture URLs for documents identified as OA. In conclusion, the robot is not yet performing at a desirable level and future work may be needed to determine the causes, and improve the algorithm.
A new family of semidynamic and dynamic flip-flops with embedded logic for high-performance processors

In an attempt to reduce the pipeline overhead, a new family of edge-triggered flip-flops has been developed. The flip-flops belong to a class of semidynamic and dynamic circuits that can interface to both static and dynamic circuits. The main features of the basic design are short latency, small clock load, small area, and a single-phase clock scheme. Furthermore, the flip-flop family has the capability of easily incorporating logic functions with a small delay penalty. This feature greatly reduces the pipeline overhead, since each flip-flop can be viewed as a special logic gate that serves as a synchronization element as well.
THE P300 AS A TYPING TOOL: TESTS OF BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE WITH AN ALS PATIENT

•Even in a severely paralyzed ALS patient it is possible to record P300 in response to odd ball stimuli. •The data from ALS patients in early stages of the disease are similar to the data obtained from able bodied subjects. •The environment of a paralyzed ALS patients presents challenges to the recording due to the presence of a respirator and other electrical devices. These technical challenges can be overcome. •It may be necessary to shift from a 6 by 6 matrix to a 2 by 2 matrix with a fully paralyzed subject due to difficulties in maintaining focus of attention on the characters. •In general, the system appears to have a potential for serving the needs of the locked in patient. •We are beginning to examine in detail the effectiveness of different detection algorithms in providing increased communication speed.
Multifractal-based Multiplicative Cascades Model for Network Applications

A computer network is a telecommunications network that allows computers to share, exchange, and transmit data. Thus, the network flow rate is very critical. How to measure the flow rate attracted large number of attentions from both academia and practical parties. This paper proposes a multifractal-based multiplicative cascades model for network applications, especially to analyze the test the network flow rate. It is observed that the fitting is well so that the proposed model is able to work out the flow rate in the network applications. In addition, the model using the multifractal-based multiplicative cascades is able to illustrate the trends of the flow rate in the network applications.
Fast Classification of XML with Network Processors

As XML documents become steadily more prevalent for data storage and communication, there is a growing need for routing XML messages in a network. Ideally one would be able to route XML packets at line speed. An important technology for complex packet routing are socalled Network Processors, which have a set of small ”microengines” classifying incoming packets. This paper describes an attempt to implement XML packet classification on the Intel IXA network architecture.
A secure private network file system with minimal system administration

In this paper, the design and implementation of PNFS, a secure private network file system is demonstrated. On PNFS each user who has an account on a remote machine is permitted to mount remote files without the assistance of the system administrator. This mount operation and the access to the mounted files are kept secured. The evaluation of PNFS is also discussed.
Accurate logic-level power simulation using glitch filtering and estimation

A power estimation tool is required to be faster and more accurate when the power consumption is the chief concern during chip design. A logic-level simulator is a good choice for estimating the power consumption of a chip design. In this paper we attempt to improve the accuracy of a logic-level simulator using glitch filtering and estimation techniques. We use the logic-level simulator to filter some glitches and estimate the glitch power. We use slope of transition and the time interval of two consecutive transitions to decide whether these transitions are partial glitches or full transitions. We estimate the transition power of each transition event and summed them. The power simulation error is reduced from 35.8% to 7.9% referring to the Spice simulation.
Cache strategies for internet-based video on-demand distribution

XIII RESUMO XV CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. MOTIVATION 2 1.2. OBJECTIVES 5 1.3. ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS PROPOSAL 6 CHAPTER 2 – STATE OF THE ART 7 2.1. CONTENT DELIVERY 7 2.2. CACHE STRATEGIES FOR VIDEO ON-DEMAND DISTRIBUTION 10 2.2.1. Proxy Caching Replacement Strategies 10 2.2.2. Proxy Caching Architectures 16 2.2.3. Server-side Proxy Caching 17 2.2.3.1. Content Distribution 18 Placement of Replica Servers 18 Content Selection and Delivery 19 Content Outsourcing 21 2.2.3.2. Request-Routing 22 2.2.3.3. Authorization, Authentication and Accounting 23 2.2.4. Interception Proxy Caches 23 2.2.5. Advances in Cache Deployment 25 2.3. VIDEO ON-DEMAND CHARACTERIZATION 27 2.4. QUALITY ISSUES FOR VIDEO ON-DEMAND DISTRIBUTION 30 2.5. SUMMARY 32 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 34 3.1. PROPOSED ALGORITHMS FOR MULTIMEDIA PROXY CACHES 34 3.1.1. Proxy Cache Conservative Approach (PCCA) 34 Media Segmentation 34 Admission Policy 35 Replacement Policy 35 3.1.2. Proxy Cache Aggressive Approach (PCAA) 38
Analysis of desert dust events over the west Iberian Peninsula in the year 2000

Desert dust events reaching the Atlantic Ocean and the Iberian Peninsula in year 2000 are analyzed in this work. Three different measurement sites were selected: Funchal (Madeira Island), Lisbon (Portugal) and El Arenosillo (Huelva, Spain). The aim of this work is to study the characteristics of desert dust aerosol during these events, and the ability of detecting them through aerosol optical depth measurements given by Brewer and Cimel instruments. Back trajectories analysis is also carried out as a support for these measurements.
Performance of multi-level QAM with post-detection maximal ratio combining space diversity for digital land-mobile radio communications

A new type of post-detection maximal ratio combining for space diversity receivers in digital land-mobile communications is proposed. The combining scheme is designed for multilevel quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and employs a pilot-symbol-aided fading estimator. It is realized at baseband using a digital signal processing (DSP) technique to simplify the receiver hardware. Computer simulation and laboratory experiments confirm that the proposed diversity scheme achieves a performance very close to that of ideal maximal ratio combining. >
Understanding developer practices in Java-based software development

Software engineering is an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems where a result to a particular problem is formulated in terms of a software system. The means for mapping a desired solution design to a working software system are programming languages that provide different and, in general, disjoint sets of programming features. It is that set of features which furnishes developers with a feasible approach to express their intentions while developing software systems. While a well-balanced set of programming language features can empower developers, a feature mismatch may impose constraints on their decision making. The use of specific language features in a solution design, however, can be influenced by varying guidelines, expert opinions, and community principles. As such cues are meant to encourage good programming practices, and improve quality (e.g., maintainability) of resulting software artifacts, it is expected that developers would adhere to the recommendations they are provided with. But to what extent do developers comply with such recommendations? Even though many advances have been made in the field of software engineering, our knowledge of developers practices (whether they comply with recommendations they are provided with, in particular, and how they use language feature, in general) remains somewhat sketchy. Though existing literature provides us with some insights in this regard, there are still unexplored facets that, when investigated, can result in valuable insights into developers practices. Such an endeavor can assist us in constructing a strong link between programming language features and their application in practice, and also in identifying the extent to which developers adhere to associated recommendations. In this thesis, we attempt to close the above gap. For this purpose, we investigate how developers employ a set of Java programming language
From Incriminating Stegomyia fasciata to Releasing Wolbachia pipientis: Australian Research on the Dengue Virus Vector, Aedes aegypti, and Development of Novel Strategies for Its Surveillance and Control

Globally, the dengue viruses (DENVs) infect approximately 300 million people annually. Australia has a history of epidemic dengue, with outbreaks in the early decades of the twentieth century responsible for tens of thousands of cases. Seminal experiments conducted by Australian scientists during these outbreaks were the first to incriminate Aedes aegypti as a major vector of dengue viruses. One hundred years later, Australian scientists are playing a lead role in the development of surveillance and suppression strategies that target this mosquito species. Surveillance of Ae. aegypti populations and their associated dengue risk was greatly improved by understanding the contribution of key premises, key containers, and cryptic larval habitats to mosquito productivity, and, more recently, the development of novel adult traps. In terms of mosquito control, targeted indoor residual pyrethroid spraying and community-based biological control utilizing predatory copepods can significantly reduce Ae. aegypti populations. The release of Ae. aegypti transinfected with the virus-blocking bacterium, Wolbachia, provides a promising strategy for limiting DENV transmission. These diverse strategies developed by Australian scientists have the potential to alleviate the burden of dengue in the future, whether it is at the local level or as part of a country-wide program.
Configuration Synthesis for Fully Restrained 7-Cable-Driven Manipulators

Cable distribution plays a vital role in Cable Driven Parallel Manipulators (CDPMs) regarding tension and workspace quality, especially in fully restrained CDPMs. This paper focuses on three typical configurations of fully restrained CDPMs with 7 cables in order to introduce an approach for configuration synthesis. Firstly, the kinematic models of three types of CDPMs with 7 cables are set up. Then, in order to evaluate workspace quality, two new indices are proposed by using tensions along each cable, which are the All Cable Tension Distribution Index (ACTDI) and Global Tension Distribution Index (GTDI). Next, the three types of CDPMs with 7 cables are analysed with the two indices. At the end, according to different performance requirements, the configurations of cable distribution are discussed and selected.
Scalable Database Management System (DBMS) architecture with Innesto

Database Management systems (DBMS) have been in the core of I nformation Systems for decades and their importance is getting higher and h igher with current high growth in user demand and rising necessity to handle big data. With recent emergence of new style of deployments in the cloud, decades o l architectures in DBMS have been greatly challenged due to their inability t o scale beyond single computing node and to handle big data. This new requireme nt has spawned new directions along scaling data storage architectures. M ost of the work surfaced lacks the applicability across many domains as they were tar g ting only a specific domain. We present a novel scalable architecture which is implement ed using a distributed spatial partitioning tree (SPT). This new archite cture replaces only the storage layer of a conventional DBMS thus leaving its applic ability across domains intact and provides strict consistency and isolation . Indexing and locking are two important components of a Relational Database Manageme nt System (DBMS) which pose as potential bottleneck when scaling. Our new app ro ch based on SPT provides a novel scalable alternative for these components . Our evaluations using the TPC-C workload show they are capab le of scaling beyond single computing node and support more concurrent us ers compared to a single node conventional system. We believe our contributi ons to be an important first step towards the goal of a scalable, cloud aware and full -featured DBMS as a service.
TINTI: A System for Retrieval in Text Tables TITLE2:

TINTIN: A System for Retrieval in Text Tables Pallavi Pyreddy and W. Bruce Croft Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval Dept. of Computer Science University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 {pyreddy,croft}@cs.umass. edu} Tables form an important kind of data element in text retrieval. Often, the gist of an entire news article or other exposition can be concisely captured in tabular form. In this paper, we examine the utility of exploiting information other than the key words in a digital document to provide the users with more flexible and powerful query capabilities. More specifically, we exploit the structural information in a document to identify tables and their component fields and let the users query based on these fields. Our empirical results have demonstrated that heuristic method based table extraction and component tagging can be performed effectively and efficiently. Moreover, our experiments in retrieval using the TINTIN system have strongly indicated that such structural decomposition can facilitate better representation of user''s information needs and hence more effective retrieval of tables.
Estimation of Link Speed Distribution from Probe Vehicle Data

Probes with GPS devices reveal useful information for traffic conditions, but the high level of noise and the sparsity of observations make it challenging to estimate speed distribution from the data collected. This paper proposes a Bayesian approach for estimating link speed distribution from GPS-equipped probe data. The key contribution of the study is a generic hierarchical Monte Carlo Markov chain algorithm for sampling from probe speed distribution, with Gaussian mixture models for probe speed clustering. The algorithm combines Gibbs sampling and Metropolis–Hastings sampling to improve convergence speed. A rigorous mathematical discussion is provided for the simulation approach. The algorithm is evaluated with synthetic data and real-world probe data and shows the feasibility of the approach. Results also confirm the computational advantages of the proposed algorithm and suggest its potential for real-time extension.
Natural Language Processing in Geographic Information Systems - Some Trends and Open Issues -

The increasing ubiquity of information technology motivates situative interaction mechanisms for the benefit of standard and power users. Classical interaction paradigms in geographic information systems are currently subject to amendment or even to substitution by context-aware and technology-agnostic natural-language-based interfaces. This work compiles a recent selection of radically innovative concepts found in three selected domains of the open GIS literature including related research demands. The added value herein lies in the coherence of future options and challenges in that field.
A Meta-Analysis of Clinical Outcomes of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement in Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease

ABSTRACT Background: End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is associated with an increased incidence of severe aortic stenosis (AS). For these patients the usual care has been surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR). ESRD patients are at increased surgical risk. Trans-aortic valve replacement (TAVR) may be an alternative to SAVR for these patients. However, TAVR trials have excluded patients with ESRD. Methods: MEDLINE, OMBASE and Cochrane databases were queried for relevant studies. A meta-analysis was performed on the selected studies. Primary outcome was early all-cause mortality; secondary outcomes included 1-year mortality, bleeding, neurological deficits, vascular complications, pacemaker requirement, and myocardial infarction. Results: A total of 16 studies included 3,499 patients. Most patients were high risk as demonstrated by Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) scores > 10 in most studies. Post-TAVR early and 1-year mortality were 10% (95%CI: 7.8–10.5%) and 33% (95%CI: 24.1–36.8%) respectively. Most common post-procedure complications were bleeding 17% (95%CI: 14.8–20.8%), pacemaker implant 14% (95%CI: 11.6–17.5%) and vascular complications 7% (95%CI: 4.3–9.9%). Neurological deficits and myocardial infarction were less common both at 1.2% (95%CI: 0.4–2.4%, 0.3–2.5% respectively). Three studies with 2,545 patients compared TAVR versus SAVR, there was no difference in early mortality (~ 10%, RR:1.0, 95%CI 0.60–1.64, p = 0.9). TAVR was associated with decreased risk of vascular complications (RR:0.58 95%CI: 0.3–0.8, p = 0.03). Conclusions: These results suggest that TAVR outcomes in ESRD patients are comparable to those patients considered extreme surgical risk. Compared to SAVR, there was no difference in early mortality, but fewer vascular complications. As the ESRD population continues to grow, future prospective studies should focus on this particular patient population.