Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A QUANTITATIVE STUDY ON PRE‐ AND POSTNATAL GROWTH OF HUMAN HEART

Hearts of newborns, children and adults of autopsied cases without cardiac diseases were studied quantitatively. In prenatal term, the growth rate of ventricular weight is higher than that of body weight, but after birth vice versa. Abrupt change from fetal to adult circulation has a prolonged effect on the morphological growth of the heart at least 1 to 2 years after birth. Newborns who died of pulmonary diseases have more hyperplastic right ventricle or more hypoplastic left one than those who died of non‐cardiopulmonary diseases. Widely patent ductus arteriosus is more frequently observed in the former than in the latter. Proportion of both ventricular masses was studied in relation to the width of ductus arteriosus and preponderance of the left ventricular mass was suggested to be a requirement for closure of ductus arteriosus
Computing at school: stimulating computing education in the UK

In this paper, we present the development of Computing at School (CAS), a UK membership association established in 2008 to promote and support the teaching of Computing and related disciplines in UK schools. Its membership is broad and includes teachers, parents, examiners, university faculty, professional societies and industry. CAS was born out of a serious concern that many students in the UK are disengaging from Computing as a discipline. The goal of CAS is to put the excitement back into Computing at school, as well as to influence Computing education policy in the UK, especially improving the wider perception of the discipline and its position within the STEM subject area.
HoloSketch: a virtual reality sketching/animation tool

This article describes HoloSketch, a virtual reality-based 3D geometry creation and manipulation tool. HoloSketch is aimed at providing nonprogrammers with an easy-to-use 3D “What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get” environment. Using head-tracked stereo shutter glasses and a desktop CRT display configuration, virtual objects can be created with a 3D wand manipulator directly in front of the user, at very high accuracy and much more rapidly than with traditional 3D drawing systems. HoloSketch also supports simple animation and audio control for virtual objects. This article describes the functions of the HoloSketch system, as well as our experience so far with more-general issues of head-tracked stereo 3D user interface design.
Diagnóstico e estadiamento do câncer de pulmão

Carcinoma of the lung can present in a number of guises and a number of possible and often complementary diagnostic approaches are available. The choice of procedure should reflect the presentation of the tumor, local expertise, intended management and patient preference. There are different methods of investigation: sputum cytology, fiberbronchoscopy, transbronchial biopsy, transbronchial needle aspiration, transthoracic fine needle aspiration, etc. The association of all of these methods increases the power of diagnosis. Staging is the measurement of the anatomical extent of a tumor in any given patient. The staging of cancer began with Denoix's TNM classification system, and, although several modifications were developed, it remains the basis of lung cancer staging systems up to now. Assigning patients to a particular TNM stage allows choosing the most appropriate therapy and provides prognostic information. Also, the impact of new therapeutic methods can be evaluated for efficacy and a comparison of the expected survival rates can be predicted.
Intra-uterine growth retardation and maternal labetatol treatment in a random allocation controlled study

SummarySummaryIntra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR) is the main contributory factor in the increased perinatal morbidity and mortality associated with pregnancy induced hypertension. Seventy-six primigravidae and 38 parous women with non-proteinuric hypertension (diastolic blood pressure >90mmHg) and singleton pregnancies were allocated at random to receive either labetalol or no anti-hypertensive treatment. At recruitment maternal age, blood pressure and gestational age were similar in both treatment and control groups. For primigravidae 16 per cent (7/45) of the controls delivered a baby with weight less than the 10th centile for gestational age compared with 19 per cent (6/31) in the labetalol treated group. A birth weight less than the 10th centile for gestational age occurred in 2 out of 18 multigravid controls and 4 out of 20 of the multigravid labetalol treated group. There were more admissions to the neonatal unit for the babies of labetalol treated mothers.A limited meta-analysis of the results.
Median parameters for Down's syndrome screening should be calculated using a moving time-window method

Background In Down's syndrome screening, the change in analyte concentrations in maternal serum with advancing gestational age is compensated for by converting concentration to multiples of the median (MoM) by using a mathematical equation describing the expected relationship. However, owing to assay drifts and shift, the equation may be incorrect, leading to deviation of the observed MoM distribution from the ideal MoM distribution. The NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme has produced standards limiting acceptable deviation, and has provided the Down's Syndrome Screening Quality Assurance Service (DQASS) to monitor it. DQASS recommends monitoring by cumulative sum plot. Methods Down's screening data for 61,368 consecutive samples (12 October 2004 to 31 December 2007) was evaluated using different median assignment techniques. Results A change in the paradigm for median equation derivation is described, which significantly improves the probability that medians will be correct at any point in time. Conclusion Software developers need to change the way medians are derived in their programmes.
Cool features and tough decisions: a comparison of variability modeling approaches

Variability modeling is essential for defining and managing the commonalities and variabilities in software product lines. Numerous variability modeling approaches exist today to support domain and application engineering activities. Most are based on feature modeling (FM) or decision modeling (DM), but so far no systematic comparison exists between these two classes of approaches. Over the last two decades many new features have been added to both FM and DM and it is tough to decide which approach to use for what purpose. This paper clarifies the relation between FM and DM. We aim to systematize the research field of variability modeling and to explore potential synergies. We compare multiple aspects of FM and DM ranging from historical origins and rationale, through syntactic and semantic richness, to tool support, identifying commonalities and differences. We hope that this effort will improve the understanding of the range of approaches to variability modeling by discussing the possible variations. This will provide insights to users considering adopting variability modeling in practice and to designers of new languages, such as the new OMG Common Variability Language.
Investigation of the potential association of vitamin D binding protein with lipoproteins

Background Vitamin D binding protein (DBP) acts as a vitamin D carrier and an actin scavenger. We have previously reported a correlation between serum DBP and lipid parameters in a cystic fibrosis population. In the present study, the relationship between serum DBP, lipoprotein fractions and vitamin D is investigated. Methods The presence of DBP in lipoprotein fractions was examined using precipitation, gel permeation chromatography and ultracentrifugation. The association between DBP and lipids was investigated in a cohort study of 211 men. Total and actin-free DBP concentrations were assessed by immunonephelometry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Serum 25(OH)- and 1.25(OH)2-vitamin D3 were assayed by radioimmunoassay. Total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), triglycerides and insulin were measured using routine methods. Low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL) was calculated according to Friedewald's formula. Results DBP was found to be present in very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL). Gel permeation chromatography revealed a bimodal DBP distribution with a lipid-bound fraction besides the known free fraction. Ultracentrifugation confirmed the presence of DBP and 25(OH)-vitamin D3 in the VLDL particle. Total serum DBP concentration and the actin-bound DBP/DBP ratio correlated significantly with total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides and albumin. The 25(OH)-vitamin D3/DBP ratio correlated negatively with serum triglyceride concentration and body mass index (BMI). The actin-bound DBP complex was identified with Western blot. Conclusions The lipid-bound DBP fraction may be of greater importance than initially thought. The present findings may have clinical consequences in view of the important physiological role of DBP.
Internet-delivered treatments for long-term conditions: strategies, efficiency and cost-effectiveness

People with long-term conditions need a great deal of support, including access to high-quality, timely information, emotional support, social support, help with making and implementing decisions, and help with adopting healthier behaviors. Self-care is an essential part of good management of long-term conditions, but poses considerable challenges for patients. In this review I discuss how internet-delivered treatments can meet user needs and hence promote self-care. Data presented are drawn largely from systematic reviews.
Psychological distress in women with a familial risk of breast cancer

In the present study women at familial risk for breast cancer (N = 26, risk group) underwent psychological assessments on two occasions: immediately prior to mammography screening and a month after notification of their normal results. Assessments included standardized measures of: acute distress; non‐specific distress; intrusive thoughts; and avoidance about breast cancer. Normal risk women not undergoing mammography (N = 27, comparison group) completed the same measures, to provide an indication of concurrent levels of distress in women recruited from the same community. Results revealed that, prior to mammography, the risk group had high levels of acute distress, which were reduced to the level of the comparison group following notification of normal mammography results. On the other hand, despite notification of normal results, the risk group continued to have higher levels of non‐specific distress, avoidance and intrusive thoughts about breast cancer. These results confirm and extend previous reports of high levels of non‐specific distress and intrusive thoughts in women at familial risk for breast cancer. The findings highlight the need for further studies to determine the sources of this distress and its possible negative consequences for these individuals at risk for cancer.
Snapshots : Determining Global States of Distributed Systems

This paper presents an algorithm by which a process in a distributed system determines a global state of the system during a computation. Many problems in distributed systems can be cast in terms of the problem of detecting global states. For instance, the global state detection algorithm helps to solve an important class of problems: stable property detection. A stable property is one that persists: once a stable property becomes true it remains true thereafter. Examples of stable properties are “computation has terminated,” “ the system is deadlocked” and “all tokens in a token ring have disappeared. ” The stable property detection problem is that of devising algorithms to detect a given stable property. Global state detection can also be used for checkpointing.
IMMUNOGENICITY OF CUBAN HEPATITIS B VACCINE IN IRANIAN CHILDREN

Background – To determine the response of Iranian children to Cuban hepatitis B vaccine. Methods – A total of 538 children who had received three doses of Cuban hepatitis B vaccine were classified into 4 groups of 6, 12, 24, and 36 months after the third dose of vaccination. Every group was subdivided into nonresponders, hyporesponders, and good-responders. Results – Of 538 vaccinees, 240 (44.6%) were females. In Group I, of 230 (42.75%) vaccinees, 25 (10.9%) were nonresponders, 51 (22.1%) hyporesponders, and 154 (67%) good-responders. In Group II, consisting of 98 (18.2%), 18 (18.4%) were nonresponders, 38 (38.8%) hyporesponders, and 42 (42.6%) good-responders. In Group III, of 100 (18.58%) vaccinees, 8(8%) were nonresponders, 32 (32%) hyporesponders, and 60 (60%) good-responders. In Group IV, with 110 (20.4%) vaccinees, 31 (28.1%) were nonresponders, 30 (27.3%) hyporesponders, and 49 (44.5%) good-responders. Conclusion – Of the total 538 vaccinees, 305 (56.7%) were good-responders, 149 (27.7%) hyporesponders, and 84 (15.6%) nonresponders. Both rates of vaccinees and concentration of anti-HBs in the good-responders were low and the number of hyporesponders and nonresponders were high.
Clearing the clouds: a study of emerging scale-out workloads on modern hardware

Emerging scale-out workloads require extensive amounts of computational resources. However, data centers using modern server hardware face physical constraints in space and power, limiting further expansion and calling for improvements in the computational density per server and in the per-operation energy. Continuing to improve the computational resources of the cloud while staying within physical constraints mandates optimizing server efficiency to ensure that server hardware closely matches the needs of scale-out workloads. In this work, we introduce CloudSuite, a benchmark suite of emerging scale-out workloads. We use performance counters on modern servers to study scale-out workloads, finding that today's predominant processor micro-architecture is inefficient for running these workloads. We find that inefficiency comes from the mismatch between the workload needs and modern processors, particularly in the organization of instruction and data memory systems and the processor core micro-architecture. Moreover, while today's predominant micro-architecture is inefficient when executing scale-out workloads, we find that continuing the current trends will further exacerbate the inefficiency in the future. In this work, we identify the key micro-architectural needs of scale-out workloads, calling for a change in the trajectory of server processors that would lead to improved computational density and power efficiency in data centers.
Ependymomas: development of immunotherapeutic strategies

Ependymomas are among the most challenging childhood brain tumors. Although 50–70% of ependymomas are cured with surgery and irradiation, a significant percentage of tumors recur. Ependymomas that are not amenable to complete resection at diagnosis have a particularly poor prognosis, and the vast majority of affected children experience tumor recurrence. Although transient responses have been observed in recurrent tumors treated with re-irradiation and several chemotherapy regimens, long-term disease control is rarely achieved. Children with recurrent disease commonly experience cumulative neurological morbidity from repeated surgical and adjuvant therapy interventions and almost universally succumb to refractory tumor progression. Accordingly, conceptually new treatment approaches are needed, both to decrease the risk of tumor recurrence and to enhance disease control in those children who experience recurrent disease. This article reviews the current application of risk-based treatment stratification at diagnosis, the rationale for exploring the role of novel therapeutic strategies such as immunotherapy at recurrence and the concept behind a vaccine-based trial for these tumors.
QDASH: a QoE-aware DASH system

Dynamic Adaptation Streaming over HTTP (DASH) enhances the Quality of Experience (QoE) for users by automatically switching quality levels according to network conditions. Various adaptation schemes have been proposed to select the most suitable quality level during video playback. Adaptation schemes are currently based on the measured TCP throughput received by the video player. Although video buffer can mitigate throughput fluctuations, it does not take into account the effect of the transition of quality levels on the QoE. In this paper, we propose a QoE-aware DASH system (or QDASH) to improve the user-perceived quality of video watching. We integrate available bandwidth measurement into the video data probes with a measurement proxy architecture. We have found that our available bandwidth measurement method facilitates the selection of video quality levels. Moreover, we assess the QoE of the quality transitions by carrying out subjective experiments. Our results show that users prefer a gradual quality change between the best and worst quality levels, instead of an abrupt switching. Hence, we propose a QoE-aware quality adaptation algorithm for DASH based on our findings. Finally, we integrate both network measurement and the QoE-aware quality adaptation into a comprehensive DASH system.
The fairy performance assessment: measuring computational thinking in middle school

Computational thinking (CT) has been described as an essential capacity to prepare students for computer science, as well as to be productive members of society. But efforts to engage K-12 students in CT are hampered by a lack of definition and assessment tools. In this paper, we describe the first results of a newly created performance assessment tool for measuring CT in middle school. We briefly describe the context for the performance assessment (game-programming courses), the aspects of CT that are measured, the results, and the factors that are associated with performance. We see the development of assessment tools as a critical step in efforts to bring CT to K-12, and to strengthen the use of game programming in middle school. We discuss problems and implications of our results.
SignatureCheck: a protocol to detect man-in-the-middle attack in SSL

Implementations of SSL/TLS in modern web browsers trust root certificate authorities (CAs) from many countries around the world. Each CA has to abide by the laws of its own government, which may require the CA to generate and sign certificates to be used for intercepting and eavesdropping on SSL/TLS sessions. The proposed SignatureCheck protocol gives clients the ability to remotely retrieve a site’s certificate thumbprints from a third party server over a channel protected by RSA signatures independent of the PKI. The client can then compare the remotely retrieved thumbprint with the thumbprints of the locally received one to detect man-in-the-middle attacks that use valid certificates or certificates that the browser accepts due to a bug or hashing collision. To test the protocol, the SignatureCheck.org server is set up and the client is implemented as a Mozilla Firefox browser extension to retrieve the thumbprints from the server.
Dexamethasone for prophylaxis against acute mountain sickness during rapid ascent to 5334 m

Twenty-three volunteers participated in a double-blind, randomized trial comparing the steroid dexamethasone 4 mg to placebo every 12 h as prophylaxis against acute mountain sickness (AMS) during a rapid ascent to a shelter on Mt Chaclataya, Bolivia. From sea level, subjects were transported by air and land vehicles to 5334 m within a 72-h period. They were evaluated by cerebral scores derived from the Environmental Symptom Questionnaire and confirmed by AMS-C and AMS-R scores. After 6–8 h at high altitude (day 3), the number of ill persons in the dexamethasone group was less than those ill in the placebo group (χ2 = 7.43, p = 0.01) by chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. After 20 h at high altitude (day 4), the contrast between groups diminished (χ2 = 2.10, p = 0.214). ANOVA and t-test showed that mean cumulative AMS scores of the dexamethasone group were significantly lower (p = 0.01, p = 0.02) than those of the placebo group for both days at high altitude, despite an approximate 82% increase in the mean cumulative score of the dexamethasone group from day 3 to day 4. We conclude that dexamethasone 4 mg every 12 h, though initially effective, was not sufficient to sustain prophylaxis from AMS symptoms at 5334 m.
Understanding user behavior in a local social media platform by social network analysis

Characterizing user behavior by social network analysis in social media has been an active research domain for a long time. However, much previous research has focused on the large-scale global social media such as Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter. Comparatively, little research has been done for the local social media. In this paper, We study the user behavior by social network analysis in a campus-based social media platform for exchanging goods and services. We also study the correlation between social networks and users' exchanging behaviors. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings and future work.
Awake craniotomy for brain tumor: indications, technique and benefits

Increasing interest in the quality of life of patients after treatment of brain tumors has led to the exploration of methods that can improve intraoperative assessment of neurological status to avoid neurological deficits. The only method that can provide assessment of all eloquent areas of cerebral cortex and white matter is brain mapping during awake craniotomy. This method helps ensure that the quality of life and the neuro-oncological result of treatment are not compromised. Apart from the medical aspects of awake surgery, its economic issues are also favorable. Here, we review the main aspects of awake brain tumor surgery. Neurosurgical, neuropsychological, neurophysiological and anesthetic issues are briefly discussed.