Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prostate Tissue Characterization/Classification in 144 Patient Population Using Wavelet and Higher Order Spectra Features from Transrectal Ultrasound Images

In this work, we have proposed an on-line computer-aided diagnostic system called “UroImage” that classifies a Transrectal Ultrasound (TRUS) image into cancerous or non-cancerous with the help of non-linear Higher Order Spectra (HOS) features and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) coefficients. The UroImage system consists of an on-line system where five significant features (one DWT-based feature and four HOS-based features) are extracted from the test image. These on-line features are transformed by the classifier parameters obtained using the training dataset to determine the class. We trained and tested six classifiers. The dataset used for evaluation had 144 TRUS images which were split into training and testing sets. Three-fold and ten-fold cross-validation protocols were adopted for training and estimating the accuracy of the classifiers. The ground truth used for training was obtained using the biopsy results. Among the six classifiers, using 10-fold cross-validation technique, Support Vector Machine and Fuzzy Sugeno classifiers presented the best classification accuracy of 97.9% with equally high values for sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value. Our proposed automated system, which achieved more than 95% values for all the performance measures, can be an adjunct tool to provide an initial diagnosis for the identification of patients with prostate cancer. The technique, however, is limited by the limitations of 2D ultrasound guided biopsy, and we intend to improve our technique by using 3D TRUS images in the future.
Treatment with 4-Methylpyrazole Modulated Stellate Cells and Natural Killer Cells and Ameliorated Liver Fibrosis in Mice

Background & Aims Accumulating evidence suggests that retinol and its metabolites are closely associated with liver fibrogenesis. Recently, we demonstrated that genetic ablation of alcohol dehydrogenase 3 (ADH3), a retinol metabolizing gene that is expressed in hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and natural killer (NK) cells, attenuated liver fibrosis in mice. In the current study, we investigated whether pharmacological ablation of ADH3 has therapeutic effects on experimentally induced liver fibrosis in mice. Methods Liver fibrosis was induced by intraperitoneal injections of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) or bile duct ligation (BDL) for two weeks. To inhibit ADH3-mediated retinol metabolism, 10 μg 4-methylpyrazole (4-MP)/g of body weight was administered to mice treated with CCl4 or subjected to BDL. The mice were sacrificed at week 2 to evaluate the regression of liver fibrosis. Liver sections were stained for collagen and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA). In addition, HSCs and NK cells were isolated from control and treated mice livers for molecular and immunological studies. Results Treatment with 4-MP attenuated CCl4- and BDL-induced liver fibrosis in mice, without any adverse effects. HSCs from 4-MP treated mice depicted decreased levels of retinoic acids and increased retinol content than HSCs from control mice. In addition, the expression of α-SMA, transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), and type I collagen α1 was significantly reduced in the HSCs of 4-MP treated mice compared to the HSCs from control mice. Furthermore, inhibition of retinol metabolism by 4-MP increased interferon-γ production in NK cells, resulting in increased apoptosis of activated HSCs. Conclusions Based on our data, we conclude that inhibition of retinol metabolism by 4-MP ameliorates liver fibrosis in mice through activation of NK cells and suppression of HSCs. Therefore, retinol and its metabolizing enzyme, ADH3, might be potential targets for therapeutic intervention of liver fibrosis.
Annotating Database Schemas to Help Enterprise Search

In large enterprises, data discovery is a common problem faced by users who need to find relevant information in relational databases. In this scenario, schema annotation is a useful tool to enrich a database schema with descriptive keywords. In this paper, we demonstrate Barcelos, a system that automatically annotates corporate databases. Unlike existing annotation approaches that use Web oriented knowledge bases, Barcelos mines enterprise spreadsheets to find candidate annotations. Our experimental evaluation shows that Barcelos produces high quality annotations; the top-5 have an average precision of 87%.
Multidisciplinary Treatment for Thoracic and Abdominopelvic Endometriosis

Background and Objectives: Thoracic endometriosis is a rare form of extragenital endometriosis with important clinical ramifications. Up to 80% of women with thoracic endometriosis have concomitant abdominopelvic endometriosis, yet the surgical treatment is usually performed with separate procedures. This is the largest published series of the combination of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery and traditional laparoscopy for the treatment of abdominopelvic and thoracic endometriosis. The objectives of this series are to further evaluate the manifestations of thoracic endometriosis, assess the multidisciplinary surgical approach, and discuss our institution's protocols. Methods: This is a retrospective, institutional review board–approved case series of 25 consecutive women who underwent combined video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery and traditional laparoscopy for the treatment of abdominopelvic, diaphragmatic, and thoracic endometriosis from January 1, 2008, to September 30, 2013. All surgeries were performed at a tertiary referral center by the same primary surgeons. Data were collected by chart review. Results: Twenty-five patients were included, with a mean age of 37.7 years. Eighty percent of patients had catamenial chest pain, and in 40% this was their only chest complaint. Shoulder pain was noted in 40% of patients, catamenial pneumothorax in 24%, and hemoptysis in 12%. One hundred percent of patients were found to have endometriosis in the pelvis, 100% in the diaphragm, 64% in the chest wall, and 40% in the parenchyma. There were 2 major postoperative complications: 1 diaphragmatic hernia and 1 vaginal cuff hematoma. Conclusion: Clinical suspicion and preoperative assessment are crucial in the diagnosis of thoracic endometriosis and allow for a multidisciplinary approach. The combination of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery and traditional laparoscopy for the treatment of endometriosis optimally addresses the pelvis, diaphragm, and thoracic cavity in a single operation.
A Compact UWB filter for Wireless communication

Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) is a promising technology for many wireless applications due to its large bandwidth, good ratio of transmission data and low power cost. the main goal of this work is to design an UWB filter suitable for that purpose. In order to achieve that goal, one UWB filter configuration have been investigated, designed and characterized after analyzing the typical filter parameters, such as the return loss, insertion loss and attenuation characteristics over the full frequency band. Setting the dimensions of the proposed filter in a miniaturized size is a requirement as per user specification. The size of this filter has also been studied because of its important aspect on the frequency behavior.
Touch inhibits subcortical and cortical nociceptive responses

Abstract The neural mechanisms of the powerful analgesia induced by touching a painful body part are controversial. A long tradition of neurophysiologic studies in anaesthetized spinal animals indicate that touch can gate nociceptive input at spinal level. In contrast, recent studies in awake humans have suggested that supraspinal mechanisms can be sufficient to drive touch-induced analgesia. To investigate this issue, we evaluated the modulation exerted by touch on established electrophysiologic markers of nociceptive function at both subcortical and cortical levels in humans. A&dgr; and C skin nociceptors were selectively activated by high-power laser pulses. As markers of subcortical and cortical function, we recorded the laser blink reflex, which is generated by brainstem circuits before the arrival of nociceptive signals at the cortex, and laser-evoked potentials, which reflect neural activity of a wide array of cortical areas. If subcortical nociceptive responses are inhibited by concomitant touch, supraspinal mechanisms alone are unlikely to be sufficient to drive touch-induced analgesia. Touch induced a clear analgesic effect, suppressed the laser blink reflex, and inhibited both A&dgr;-fibre and C-fibre laser-evoked potentials. Thus, we conclude that touch-induced analgesia is likely to be mediated by a subcortical gating of the ascending nociceptive input, which in turn results in a modulation of cortical responses. Hence, supraspinal mechanisms alone are not sufficient to mediate touch-induced analgesia.
Effect of liposomal fluidity on skin permeation of sodium fluorescein entrapped in liposomes

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of ultradeformable liposome components, Tween 20 and terpenes, on vesicle fluidity. The fluidity was evaluated by electron spin resonance spectroscopy using 5-doxyl stearic acid and 16-doxyl stearic acid as spin labels for phospholipid bilayer fluidity at the C5 atom of the acyl chain near the polar head group (hydrophilic region) and the C16 atom of the acyl chain (lipophilic region), respectively. The electron spin resonance study revealed that Tween 20 increased the fluidity at the C5 atom of the acyl chain, whereas terpenes increased the fluidity at the C16 atom of the acyl chain of the phospholipid bilayer. The increase in liposomal fluidity resulted in the increased skin penetration of sodium fluorescein. Confocal laser scanning microscopy showed that ultradeformable liposomes with terpenes increase the skin penetration of sodium fluorescein by enhancing hair follicle penetration.
MapReduce Analysis for Cloud-Archived Data

Public storage clouds have become a popular choice for archiving certain classes of enterprise data - for example, application and infrastructure logs. These logs contain sensitive information like IP addresses or user logins due to which regulatory and security requirements often require data to be encrypted before moved to the cloud. In order to leverage such data for any business value, analytics systems (e.g. Hadoop/MapReduce) first download data from these public clouds, decrypt it and then process it at the secure enterprise site. We propose VNCache: an efficient solution for MapReduceanalysis of such cloud-archived log data without requiring an apriori data transfer and loading into the local Hadoop cluster. VNcache dynamically integrates cloud-archived data into a virtual namespace at the enterprise Hadoop cluster. Through a seamless data streaming and prefetching model, Hadoop jobs can begin execution as soon as they are launched without requiring any apriori downloading. With VNcache's accurate pre-fetching and caching, jobs often run on a local cached copy of the data block significantly improving performance. When no longer needed, data is safely evicted from the enterprise cluster reducing the total storage footprint. Uniquely, VNcache is implemented with NO changes to the Hadoop application stack.
On Markov Games Played by Bayesian and Boundedly-Rational Players

We present a new game-theoretic framework in which Bayesian players with bounded rationality engage in a Markov game and each has private but incomplete information regarding other players' types. Instead of utilizing Harsanyi's abstract types and a common prior, we construct intentional player types whose structure is explicit and induces a {\em finite-level} belief hierarchy. We characterize an equilibrium in this game and establish the conditions for existence of the equilibrium. The computation of finding such equilibria is formalized as a constraint satisfaction problem and its effectiveness is demonstrated on two cooperative domains.
Mechanisms of microglial activation in models of inflammation and hypoxia: Implications for chronic intermittent hypoxia

Chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH) is a hallmark of sleep apnoea, a condition associated with diverse clinical disorders. CIH and sleep apnoea are characterized by increased reactive oxygen species formation, peripheral and CNS inflammation, neuronal death and neurocognitive deficits. Few studies have examined the role of microglia, the resident CNS immune cells, in models of CIH. Thus, little is known concerning their direct contributions to neuropathology or the cellular mechanisms regulating their activities during or following pathological CIH. In this review, we identify gaps in knowledge regarding CIH‐induced microglial activation, and propose mechanisms based on data from related models of hypoxia and/or hypoxia–reoxygenation. CIH may directly affect microglia, or may have indirect effects via the periphery or other CNS cells. Peripheral inflammation may indirectly activate microglia via entry of pro‐inflammatory molecules into the CNS, and/or activation of vagal afferents that trigger CNS inflammation. CIH‐induced release of damage‐associated molecular patterns from injured CNS cells may also activate microglia via interactions with pattern recognition receptors expressed on microglia. For example, Toll‐like receptors activate mitogen‐activated protein kinase/transcription factor pathways required for microglial inflammatory gene expression. Although epigenetic effects from CIH have not yet been studied in microglia, potential epigenetic mechanisms in microglial regulation are discussed, including microRNAs, histone modifications and DNA methylation. Epigenetic effects can occur during CIH, or long after it has ended. A better understanding of CIH effects on microglial activities may be important to reverse CIH‐induced neuropathology in patients with sleep disordered breathing.
The MateCat Tool

We present a new web-based CAT tool providing translators with a professional work environment, integrating translation memories, terminology bases, concordancers, and machine translation. The tool is completely developed as open source software and has been already successfully deployed for business, research and education. The MateCat Tool represents today probably the best available open source platform for investigating, integrating, and evaluating under realistic conditions the impact of new machine translation technology on human post-editing.
Inferior Frontal Gyrus Activation Predicts Individual Differences in Perceptual Learning of Cochlear-Implant Simulations

This study investigated the neural plasticity associated with perceptual learning of a cochlear implant (CI) simulation. Normal-hearing listeners were trained with vocoded and spectrally shifted speech simulating a CI while cortical responses were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A condition in which the vocoded speech was spectrally inverted provided a control for learnability and adaptation. Behavioral measures showed considerable individual variability both in the ability to learn to understand the degraded speech, and in phonological working memory capacity. Neurally, left-lateralized regions in superior temporal sulcus and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) were sensitive to the learnability of the simulations, but only the activity in prefrontal cortex correlated with interindividual variation in intelligibility scores and phonological working memory. A region in left angular gyrus (AG) showed an activation pattern that reflected learning over the course of the experiment, and covariation of activity in AG and IFG was modulated by the learnability of the stimuli. These results suggest that variation in listeners' ability to adjust to vocoded and spectrally shifted speech is partly reflected in differences in the recruitment of higher-level language processes in prefrontal cortex, and that this variability may further depend on functional links between the left inferior frontal gyrus and angular gyrus. Differences in the engagement of left inferior prefrontal cortex, and its covariation with posterior parietal areas, may thus underlie some of the variation in speech perception skills that have been observed in clinical populations of CI users.
Rozwojowe współoddziaływanie pokoleń w rodzinie. Rodzice w wieku średnim i dorastające dzieci

Developmental co-influence of generation in family. Parents in the middle-age and their adolescent children The main attention in the article is paid to the problem of correspondence between the development of middle-aged adults and their adolescent child. The most important experience is achieved in the family, so the family is called the primary context of human development. Performing parental roles is an activity which is conducive to human development. The variety of changes in adolescence and their peculiarity cause the relationship between parents and adolescents to be problematic, so parents should be very sensitive and candid to children’s problems. They must be flexible as tutors. Activity in the middle-age, which contains different parents’ behaviour, such as being interested in their adolescent children, helping them in their maturation and permission to their growing autonomy bring about a sense of being creative and protect people in this stage of life from the selfish concentration on their own problems. So children could be a chance for a parent’s development, chance of satisfying the need of giving and creating in relation to the younger generation, the need characteristic of this developmental stage. On the other hand adolescents need their parents to grow to be adult, need their emotional and instrumental assistance. Middle-aged parents who lack awareness of the growing teenager's need of developmental changes do not stimulate the child's development and, more importantly, delay the child's and their own personal development. Reciprocal dependence both of the generation in this stage of developmental changes is evident in particular.
Wsparcie informacyjne – oczekiwania rodziców wychowujących dziecko z niepełnosprawnością intelektualną

The issue of social support for the family seems to be very current and significant, especially nowadays, i.e. in the time of fast changes, globalization and consumerism. Parents raising children with intellectual disability experience many kinds of difficulties which are often impossible to deal with without external support. One of the most important forms of such help is information support, which can be defined as providing information on the child’s development, the methods of coping with difficulties, as well as education, treatment and therapy and the possibilities of support. The research group included 80 parents of children with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities. The mothers and fathers answered questions about people, institutions and organizations from which they expected to receive information support. They also stated their expectations about the kinds and forms of information support they needed.
Towards a parallel framework of grid-based numerical algorithms on DAGs

This paper presents a parallel framework of grid-based numerical algorithms where data dependencies between grid zones can be modeled by a directed acyclic graph (DAG). It consists of three parts on how to partition, order and calculate the vertices of digraph. Numerical results using hundreds of processors on two parallel machines show the efficiencies and moderate scalability of this framework
Inorganic Nanoparticles for MRI Contrast Agents

Various inorganic nanoparticles have been used as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents due to their unique properties, such as large surface area and efficient contrasting effect. Since the first use of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) as a liver contrast agent, nanoparticulate MRI contrast agents have attracted a lot of attention. Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles have been extensively used as MRI contrast agents due to their ability to shorten T2* relaxation times in the liver, spleen, and bone marrow. More recently, uniform ferrite nanoparticles with high crystallinity have been successfully employed as new T2 MRI contrast agents with improved relaxation properties. Iron oxide nanoparticles functionalized with targeting agents have been used for targeted imaging via the site‐specific accumulation of nanoparticles at the targets of interest. Recently, extensive research has been conducted to develop nanoparticle‐based T1 contrast agents to overcome the drawbacks of iron oxide nanoparticle‐based negative T2 contrast agents. In this report, we summarize the recent progress in inorganic nanoparticle‐based MRI contrast agents.
Model Checking of Analog Systems using an Analog Specification Language

In this contribution an advanced methodology for model checking of analog systems is introduced. A new analog specification language (ASL)for efficient property specifications is defined and model checking algorithms for implementing this language are presented. This allows verification of complex static and dynamic circuit properties like oscillation and startup time that have not yet been formally verifiable with previous approaches. The new verification methodology is applied to example circuits and experimental results are discussed and compared to conventional circuit simulation.
Learning Socially Embedded Visual Representation from Scratch

Learning image representation by deep model has recently made remarkable achievements for semantic-oriented applications, such as image classification. However, for user-centric tasks, such as image search and recommendation, simply employing the representation learnt from semantic-oriented tasks may fail to capture user intentions. In this paper, we propose a novel Socially Embedded VIsual Representation Learning (SEVIR) approach, where an Asymmetric Multi-task CNN (amtCNN) model is proposed to embed user intention learning task into semantic learning task. Specifically, to address the sparsity and unreliability problems in social behavioral data, we propose to use user clustering, reliability evaluation, random dropout in output layer in our amtCNN. With its the partially shared network architecture, the learnt representation can capture both semantics and user intentions. Comprehensive experiments are conducted to investigate the effectiveness of our approach in applications of user favoring prediction, personalized image recommendation, and image reranking. Compared to the state-of-the-art image representation techniques, our approach achieves significant improvement in performance.
Resiliência e Justiça Organizacional como Antecedentes da Percepção de Desenvolvimento Profissional

O mercado competitivo da atualidade tem exigido mais qualificacao dos trabalhadores, o que aumenta a relevância do construto desenvolvimento profissional. O objetivo deste estudo foi testar um modelo de predicao da percepcao do desenvolvimento profissional. Participaram da pesquisa 320 trabalhadores de diferentes categorias profissionais de organizacoes publicas e privadas. O questionario continha tres escalas, todas com bons indicadores psicometricos. Os resultados apontados a partir da regressao multipla confirmaram que percepcao de justica organizacional e resiliencia predizem positivamente a percepcao de desenvolvimento profissional, sendo que esta demonstra maior poder preditivo. Os resultados foram discutidos de acordo com a teoria do desenvolvimento profissional.