Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accuracy of the 2008 Simplified Criteria for the Diagnosis of Autoimmune Hepatitis in Children

Purpose Classical criteria for diagnosis of autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) are intended as research tool and are difficult to apply at patient's bedside. We aimed to study the accuracy of simplified criteria and the concordance with the expert diagnosis based on the original criteria. Methods A cohort of children under study for liver disorder was selected through consecutive sampling to obtain the prevalence of AIH within the group of differential diagnoses. AIH was defined, based on classical criteria, through committee review of medical reports. Validity indicators of the simplified criteria were obtained in an intention to diagnose approach. Optimal cut-off and the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve were calculated. Results Out of 212 cases reviewed, 47.2% were AIH. For the optimal cut-off (6 points), the simplified criteria showed a sensitivity of 72.0% and a specificity of 96.4%, with a 94.7% positive and a 79.4% negative predictive value. The area under the ROC curve was 94.3%. There was a good agreement in the pre-treatment concordance between the classical and the simplified criteria (kappa index, 0.775). Conclusion Simplified criteria provide a moderate sensitivity for the diagnosis of AIH, but may help in indicating treatment in cases under suspicion with 6 or more points.
A segment-tree based kinetic BSP

We present anew technique to maintain a BSP for a set of n moving disj oint segments in the plane. Our kinetic BSP uses O(n log n) storage and it undergoes O(n 2 ) changes in the worst case, assuming that the endpoints of the segments move along bounded-degree algebraically dened trajecto- ries. The response time (the time needed to update the BSP when it undergoes a change) is O(log 2 n). A random- ized variant achieves O(log n) expected response time, while the worst-case response time remains O(log 2 n). The new BSP is based on a simple technique for main- taining a 1-d segment tree on a set of intervals on the real line with moving endpoints. The response time of the ki- netic segment treeisO(log n) intheworst case, and O(1) expected.
The impact of online social networking on adolescent psychological well-being (WB): a population-level analysis of Korean school-aged children

Abstract This study examines the extent to which online media activities are associated with psychological well-being of adolescents. Data come from the Korean Youth Panel Survey (KYPS), a government-funded multiyear research project. Based on Wave 4 (2007) and Wave 5 (2008) of KYPS, the most recent data available, hierarchical linear models are estimated to probe the psychological effects of time spent online. While holding constant a host of time-lagged control variables at individual (student) and contextual (school) levels, the analysis shows that online social networking is adversely associated with the psychological status of Korean students, measured in terms of self-reported mental problems and suicidal thought. The bulk of previous research on the pros and cons of online social media use is based on cross-sectional data, thereby precluding causal inference. Using longitudinal data, the current research offers more conclusive evidence on the direction of causation.
System Description : KRHyper

KRHyper is a first order logic theorem proving and model generation system based on the hyper tableau calculus. It is targeted for use as an embedded system within knowledge based applications. In contrast to most first order theorem provers, it supports features important for those applications, for example queries with predicate extensions as answers, handling of large sets of uniformly structured input facts, arithmetic evaluation and stratified negation as failure.
Calcium Regulation in the Protozoan Model, Paramecium tetraurelia

Early in eukaryotic evolution, the cell has evolved a considerable inventory of proteins engaged in the regulation of intracellular Ca2+ concentrations, not only to avoid toxic effects but beyond that to exploit the signaling capacity of Ca2+ by small changes in local concentration. Among protozoa, the ciliate Paramecium may now be one of the best analyzed models. Ciliary activity and exo‐/endocytosis are governed by Ca2+, the latter by Ca2+ mobilization from alveolar sacs and a superimposed store‐operated Ca2+‐influx. Paramecium cells possess plasma membrane‐ and endoplasmic reticulum‐resident Ca2+‐ATPases/pumps (PMCA, SERCA), a variety of Ca2+ influx channels, including mechanosensitive and voltage‐dependent channels in the plasma membrane, furthermore a plethora of Ca2+‐release channels (CRC) of the inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate and ryanodine receptor type in different compartments, notably the contractile vacuole complex and the alveolar sacs, as well as in vesicles participating in vesicular trafficking. Additional types of CRC probably also occur but they have not been identified at a molecular level as yet, as is the equivalent of synaptotagmin as a Ca2+ sensor for exocytosis. Among established targets and sensors of Ca2+ in Paramecium are calmodulin, calcineurin, as well as Ca2+/calmodulin‐dependent protein kinases, all with multiple functions. Thus, basic elements of Ca2+ signaling are available for Paramecium.
Exploring intercultural communicative competence in a distance language learning environment

This study explores intercultural communicative competence in a distance language learning programme at the Open University in the UK. The research was based on two cohorts of distance language students of German, one at beginner and one at advanced level. This study uses an approach that combines quantitative and qualitative research methods through the use of questionnaires and in-depth, semi-structured telephone interviews. It was established that the conceptual framework of intercultural communicative competence developed by Byram (1997b) and his collaborators is the most comprehensive and viable framework for this project. There is evidence in the literature that this framework has been used successfully in different contexts (Byram & Morgan, 1994; O’Dowd, 2006; Sercu et al., 2005a). Little research has been conducted on the development of intercultural communicative competence in adults, with the exception of Aarup Jensen et al. (1995). So this project addresses a gap in the research into intercultural communicative competence among adults. Furthermore, it focuses on a programme of language study at a distance, which is another area for which only limited research evidence could be found. The findings of the project, both the quantitative and qualitative aspects, demonstrate that these learners gained knowledge through the study of a prescribed package of course materials, and that there is evidence of the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence of varying degrees, as stipulated in Byram’s conceptual framework. The findings also demonstrate that the framework of intercultural communicative competence would benefit from the addition of a sixth dimension to encapsulate the experiences and diverse backgrounds that specifically adult learners bring to the study of a modern foreign language: experience of life or savoir s’appuyer sur son experience.
Reverse Engineering : a Conceptual Model

Software reverse engineering is a crucial task to reconstruct high-level views of a software system—with the purpose of understanding and/or maintaining it—when the only reliable source of information is the source code, or even the system binaries. This paper discusses key reverse engineering concepts through a UML conceptual model. Specifically, the model is composed of a set of UML class diagrams describing relationships existing among reverse engineering processes, tools, artifacts, and stakeholders.
It doesn't take a whole U-Net to find brain tumors: towards fast brain metastasis segmentation with sparse predictions

However, current state-of-the-art fully-convolutional neural networks (including 3D U-Net architecture) process an image as a whole, without any additional attention to suspicious regions. Therefore, the number of computational operations increase as a third order polynomial from the image size. Deep learning research suggests [2] that deeper networks provide better results, therefore such inefficiency can limit maximum performance.
Characterization of DNA polymerase X from Thermus thermophilus HB8 reveals the POLXc and PHP domains are both required for 3′–5′ exonuclease activity

The X-family DNA polymerases (PolXs) comprise a highly conserved DNA polymerase family found in all kingdoms. Mammalian PolXs are known to be involved in several DNA-processing pathways including repair, but the cellular functions of bacterial PolXs are less known. Many bacterial PolXs have a polymerase and histidinol phosphatase (PHP) domain at their C-termini in addition to a PolX core (POLXc) domain, and possess 3′–5′ exonuclease activity. Although both domains are highly conserved in bacteria, their molecular functions, especially for a PHP domain, are unknown. We found Thermus thermophilus HB8 PolX (ttPolX) has Mg2+/Mn2+-dependent DNA/RNA polymerase, Mn2+-dependent 3′–5′ exonuclease and DNA-binding activities. We identified the domains of ttPolX by limited proteolysis and characterized their biochemical activities. The POLXc domain was responsible for the polymerase and DNA-binding activities but exonuclease activity was not detected for either domain. However, the POLXc and PHP domains interacted with each other and a mixture of the two domains had Mn2+-dependent 3′–5′ exonuclease activity. Moreover, site-directed mutagenesis revealed catalytically important residues in the PHP domain for the 3′–5′ exonuclease activity. Our findings provide a molecular insight into the functional domain organization of bacterial PolXs, especially the requirement of the PHP domain for 3′–5′ exonuclease activity.
Declarative definition of contexts with polymorphic events

This paper introduces a new model of event handling combining explicitly triggered events with events intercepted with aspect-oriented features. The model supports event abstraction, polymorphic references to events, and declarative definition of events as expressions involving references to events from other objects. We show that this model makes it easy to define a declarative and compositional notion of event-based context. We illustrate these ideas with examples in ECaesarJ, a language with concrete support for our model, and relate the events of ECaesarJ to other event-handling and context-handling models.
Dendrin expression in glomerulogenesis and in human minimal change nephrotic syndrome.

BACKGROUND Dendrin is an 81-kD cytosolic protein hitherto described in the brain, where it is associated with the actin cytoskeleton. Recently, we found dendrin in foot processes of mouse glomerular podocytes. Here we describe its expression both during mouse glomerulogenesis and in the normal and diseased human kidney for the first time. METHODS Dendrin expression was characterized using RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry and semi-quantified using immunoelectron microscopy. RESULTS In glomerulogenesis, dendrin mRNA and protein appeared first at the early capillary loop stage. It was concentrated to the pre-podocytes on the basal side of podocalyxin, an apical cell membrane marker. In human tissue, dendrin transcripts were detected in the brain and kidney. In the mature kidney dendrin localized solely in the podocytes, close to the filtration slit diaphragms. A comparison with the slit-associated protein zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1) was done in minimal change nephrotic syndrome (MCNS). Dendrin and ZO-1 were re-distributed from slit regions to the podocyte cytoplasm in areas with foot process effacement (FPE). In areas without FPE, dendrin and ZO-1 distributions were unchanged compared to controls. The total amounts of dendrin or ZO-1 markers were unchanged. This differs from nephrin that, according to our previous results, is also decreased in non-effaced areas. CONCLUSIONS The expression of dendrin during glomerulogenesis and in the normal human kidney is similar to that previously shown for nephrin, which suggests that dendrin associates with the slit diaphragm complex. In MCNS patients, dendrin and ZO-1 are re-distributed within the podocytes. Whether this is a cause or a consequence of FPE remains unclear.
Developmental mechanisms underlying improved contrast thresholds for discriminations of orientation signals embedded in noise

We combined an external noise paradigm with an efficient procedure for obtaining contrast thresholds (Lesmes et al., 2006) in order to model developmental changes in the effect of noise on contrast discrimination during childhood. Specifically, we measured the contrast thresholds of 5-, 7-, 9-year-olds and adults (n = 20/age) in a two alternative forced-choice orientation discrimination task over a wide range of external noise levels and at three levels of accuracy. Overall, as age increased, contrast thresholds decreased over the entire range of external noise levels tested. The decrease was greatest between 5 and 7 years of age. The reduction in threshold after age 5 was greater in the high than the low external noise region, a pattern implying greater tolerance of the irrelevant background noise as children became older. To model the mechanisms underlying these developmental changes in terms of internal noise components, we adapted the original perceptual template model (Lu and Dosher, 1998) and normalized the magnitude of performance changes against the performance of 5-year-olds. The resulting model provided an excellent fit (r2 = 0.985) to the contrast thresholds at multiple levels of accuracy (60, 75, and 90%) across a wide range of external noise levels. The improvements in contrast thresholds with age were best modeled by a combination of reductions in internal additive noise, reductions in internal multiplicative noise, and improvements in excluding external noise by template retuning. In line with the data, the improvement was greatest between 5 and 7 years of age, accompanied by a 39% reduction in additive noise, 71% reduction in multiplicative noise, and 45% improvement in external noise exclusion. The modeled improvements likely reflect developmental changes at the cortical level, rather than changes in front-end structural properties (Kiorpes et al., 2003).
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Price stability and volatility in markets with positive and negative expectations feedback: an experimental investigation

The evolution of many economic variables is affected by expectations that economic agents have with respect to the future development of these variables. We show, by means of laboratory experiments, that market behaviour depends to a large extent on whether realized market prices respond positively or negatively to average price expectations. In the case of negative expectations feedback, as in commodity markets, prices converge quickly to their equilibrium value, confirming the rational expectations hypothesis. In the case of positive expectations feedback, as is typical for speculative asset markets, large fluctuations in realized prices and persistent deviations from the benchmark fundamental price are likely. We estimate individual forecasting rules and investigate how these explain the differences in aggregate market outcomes.
Psychological aspects of short-term and long-term memory

During the past decade, there has been a rapid increase in the number of published experiments on short-term memory. These have been stimulated by a clash between some investigators who regarded that form of memory as having distinct and peculiar qualities, and others who contended that the same principles apply both to short-term and to long-term memory. This latter group in particular wished to make use of the principle of associative interference, which has been established as of major importance in long-term memory. That is, much forgetting is dae to the need to remember other things, rather than to deterioration of the desired memory itself. All parties now agree that an 'iconic' or 'pre-perceptual' storage exists, to which the principles of long-term memory do not apply. Once information has passed beyond this stage, however, it is clear that these principles do play a part even in short-term memory; but that there are nevertheless some major experimental differences between memory over short periods and over long periods.
Polyol-Mediated Preparation of Nanoscale Oxide Particles.

Largely monodisperse, crystalline nanoscale oxide particles (for example, Cu2 O, TiO2 , Nb2 O5 ) are preparatively accessible with the polyol method. The colloidal suspensions of the particles thus obtained can be employed readily for the homogeneous coating of various substrates (for example, glass plates, Al2 O3 powder).
Influencia de Factores Psicológicos y Contextuales en la Elección Modal

La modelacion de la eleccion modal ha utilizado usualmente como variables explicativas atributos del nivel de servicio, costos y caracteristicas socioeconomicas de los individuos. Investigaciones recientes han sugerido que los atributos psicologicos, de contexto o habito, pueden ayudar a comprender el proceso de eleccion, mejorando los modelos explicativos. El presente trabajo indaga el rol de factores psicologicos y contextuales en la eleccion modal, incorporandolos en un modelo de eleccion discreta. Para ello, se combinan metodos usuales para estudiar la demanda de transporte, con herramientas propias de la psicologia social, en el marco teorico proporcionado por la Teoria del Comportamiento Interpersonal de Triandis. Se disenaron encuestas orientadas a medir los factores de actitud, sociales, de afecto, habito y contexto para viajes al trabajo en el periodo manana. Estas encuestas fueron aplicadas a funcionarios de la Universidad de Concepcion en el mes de enero de los anos 2007 y 2008. Las variables psicologicas fueron integradas en modelos Logit a traves de variables mudas. Los resultados muestran que estas variables psicologicas ayudan a explicar la conducta observada e introducen mejoras significativas en la estimacion de los modelos de eleccion, por sobre aquellos estimados con las variables usuales de tiempo y costo.
CMOS analog circuit design via geometric programming

This talk presents a new method for optimizing and automating component sizing in CMOS analog circuits. It is shown that a wide variety of circuit performance measures have a special form, i.e., they are polynomial functions of the design variables. As a result, circuit design problems can be posed as geometric programs, a special type of convex optimization problem for which very efficient global optimization methods exist. The synthesis method is therefore fast, and determines the globally optimal design; in particular, the final solution is completely independent of the starting point, and infeasible specifications are unambiguously detected. Also, because the method is highly efficient, in practice it can be used to carry out robust designs and quickly explore the design space. We show that despite the restricted form of geometric programs, a large variety of circuit design problems can be posed as geometric programs.
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Most haptic peripheral displays provide active feedback. We present BubbleWrap, which simulates different degrees of softness to display low notification levels as dynamic passive haptic feedback. When combined with active feedback, interface designers can easily control the level of notification to users. BubbleWrap consists of a matrix of electro-magnetic actuators, enclosed in fabric, with individually controllable cells that expand and contract. Our experiment showed that users can reliably discriminate among three softness levels, for both physical and BubbleWrap conditions. Haptic displays like BubbleWrap can help interaction designers to offer better control of attention management, from discrete and non-invasive to attention-grabbing alerts.
Aggression in Women: Behavior, Brain and Hormones

We review the literature on aggression in women with an emphasis on laboratory experimentation and hormonal and brain mechanisms. Women tend to engage in more indirect forms of aggression (e.g., spreading rumors) than other types of aggression. In laboratory studies, women are less aggressive than men, but provocation attenuates this difference. In the real world, women are just as likely to aggress against their romantic partner as men are, but men cause more serious physical and psychological harm. A very small minority of women are also sexually violent. Women are susceptible to alcohol-related aggression, but this type of aggression may be limited to women high in trait aggression. Fear of being harmed is a robust inhibitor of direct aggression in women. There are too few studies and most are underpowered to detect unique neural mechanisms associated with aggression in women. Testosterone shows the same small, positive relationship with aggression in women as in men. The role of cortisol is unclear, although some evidence suggests that women who are high in testosterone and low in cortisol show heightened aggression. Under some circumstances, oxytocin may increase aggression by enhancing reactivity to provocation and simultaneously lowering perceptions of danger that normally inhibit many women from retaliating. There is some evidence that high levels of estradiol and progesterone are associated with low levels of aggression. We highlight that more gender-specific theory-driven hypothesis testing is needed with larger samples of women and aggression paradigms relevant to women.
Supersymmetry in Elementary Particle Physics

These lectures give a general introduction to supersymmetry, emphasizing its application to models of elementary particle physics at the 100 GeV energy scale. I discuss the following topics: the construction of supersymmetric Lagrangians with scalars, fermions, and gauge bosons, the structure and mass spectrum of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), the measurement of the parameters of the MSSM at high-energy colliders, and the solutions that the MSSM gives to the problems of electroweak symmetry breaking and dark matter.
Circulating U2 small nuclear RNA fragments as a novel diagnostic tool for patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.

BACKGROUND Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death among malignancies in women. Despite advances in treatment, >50% of patients relapse. For disease monitoring, the identification of a blood-based biomarker would be of prime interest. In this regard, noncoding RNAs, such as microRNA (miRNA) or small nuclear RNA (snRNA), have been suggested as biomarkers for noninvasive cancer diagnosis. In the present study, we sought to identify differentially expressed miRNA/snRNA in sera of ovarian cancer patients and investigate their potential to aid in therapy monitoring. METHODS miRNA/snRNA abundance was investigated in serum (n = 10) by microarray analysis and validated in an extended serum set (n = 119) by reverse-transcription quantitative PCR. RESULTS Abundance of U2-1 snRNA fragment (RNU2-1f) was significantly increased in sera of ovarian cancer patients (P < 0.0001) and paralleled International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage as well as residual tumor burden after surgery (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.011, respectively). Moreover, for patients with suboptimal debulking, preoperative RNU2-1f concentration was associated with radiographic response after chemotherapy and with platinum resistance (P = 0.0088 and P = 0.0015, respectively). Interestingly, according to the RNU2-1f abundance dynamics, persistent RNU2-1f positivity before surgery and after chemotherapy identified a subgroup of patients with high risk of recurrence and poor prognosis. CONCLUSIONS This is the first report to suggest that a circulating snRNA can serve as an auxiliary diagnostic tool for monitoring tumor dynamics in ovarian cancer. Our results provide a rationale to further investigate whether this high-risk patient group may benefit from additional therapies that are directly applied after chemotherapy.