Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
AND COMMENTARY ON THE MASCC / ISOO GUIDELINES — Interview with

S317 Dr Bensinger is a clinician and researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington; he is also Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington. Dr Noga is Director of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology and the Director of the Bone Marrow Transplantation/Cellular Therapeutics Program at the Alvin and Lois Lapidus Cancer Institute of Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland; he is also Associate Professor of Oncology and Pathology at Johns Hopkins University. A senior clinical editor for Advanced Studies in Medicine (ASiM) interviewed Dr Bensinger and Dr Noga to get their reactions to recently published Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC)/International Society for Oral Oncology (ISOO) mucositis guidelines and also to talk more generally about the role of guidelines and protocols in improving the management of mucositis in the setting of bone marrow transplantation (BMT)/hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).
EFFECT OF GEOMETRIC IRREGULARITY OF AGGREGATES ON THE PROPERTIES AND BEHAVIOR OF BITUMINOUS CONCRETE

The geometric irregularity (GI) of aggregate particles has a major effect on the physical properties and mechanical behavior of bituminous paving mixtures. Many test procedures and quality criteria have been adopted to evaluate and control these geometric factors for the use of aggregates as mixture ingredients, most of which have historically been qualitative and subjective. However, several tests were developed in the 1960s to measure the combined geometric properties of aggregate particles in bulk. Although mainly empirical, they provide a practical tool for bituminous concrete technology. A more recent development is the packing volume concept, by which the GI of aggregate particles is unified and expressed quantitatively through basic volumetric parameters related both to the physical properties of individual particles and to the packing behavior of particles in bulk. A test procedure, the pouring test, was developed for the fast, simple, and practical bulk measurement of these parameters. The packing volume concept and the pouring test have already been applied to aggregate and bituminous mixture technology. This paper, which presents a continuation of the research effort on this subject, describes a comprehensive quantitative study on the GI of a wide range of aggregate types and its influence on the properties and behavior of actual bituminous paving mixtures.
A new system of tympanoplasty using vein graft

Rehabilitative surgery of the ear in chronic middle ear and mastoid disease has made great strides since the pioneering work of Wullstein and Zollner with tympanoplasty.l,2 Technical difficulties, however, have limited the restoration of practical hearing to less than half of those with sufficient pathology to require procedures by-passing or substituting for portions of the ossicular chain. Chief among these difficulties are the problems arising from the use of a skin graft to cover the middle ear. In spite of the most careful attention to detail, the otologic surgeon must accept the possibility of flap cholesteatoma, dissolution of the graft with the recurrence of infection, formation of adhesions preventing free motion of the drum and ossicles, and the necessity of constant cleaning of debris from the surface of the graft; furthermore, the skin graft has excess mass and insufficient stiffness compared to the normal drum, causing poorer transmission of the higher frequencies. 3
The Plasma Amino Acids in Malnutrition

It is generally appreciated that malnutrition is the world's foremost paediatric problem. Directly or indirectly it makes the major contribution to child mortality. Nevertheless, it remains an entity which is not well defined, or, more accurately, a combination of entities only some of which are well defined. We recognize the effects of certain specific food factors, the accessory food factors or vitamins, and we have some knowledge of changes brought about by deficits of the inorganic components of diet. The effects of caloric deficits, of protein deficits and of possible deficits of specific amino acids have, however, been difficult to separate. Protein and caloric deficits are commonly associated and the existence of syndromes of specific amino acid deficiency has not been definitely established although there is some evidence that they exist. It appears that the more exact definition of this area of deficiency will depend on chemical studies. We already know that plasma protein levels fall in protein deficiency, particularly the albumin fraction, and that blood urea is also reduced. We know that certain protein enzymes in the blood and the liver (Waterlow and Patrick, 1954; Burch, Arroyave, Schwartz, Padilla, Behar, Viteri and Scrimshaw, 1957) are diminished. It has seemed to us that observations on the free amino acids of the plasma might be of help in delineating specific entities within this area. The free amino acid level of the plasma might prove to be a more significant index of protein adequacy than other criteria that have been applied and the plasma free amino acid pattern, even if it could not be correlated with symptoms of specific amino acid deficiency, might yet be of considerable value in pointing to limiting amino acids and thus providing a sounder basis for dietary
Bilateral C1–C2 Transarticular Screw and C1 Laminar Hook Fixation and Bone Graft Fusion for Reducible Atlantoaxial Dislocation: A Seven-Year Analysis of Outcome

Background Bilateral C1-2 transarticular screw and C1 laminar hook fixation was developed on the basis of transarticular screws fixation. The modified technique has showed a better biomechanical stability than established techniques in previous study. However, long-term (minimum follow-up 7 years) outcomes of patients with reducible atlantoaxial dislocation who underwent this modified fixation technique have not still been reported. Methods A retrospective study was conducted to evaluate the outcome of 36 patients who underwent this modified technique. Myelopathy was assessed using the Ranawat myelopathy score and Myelopathy Disability Index. Pain scores were assessed using Visual Analogue Scale. Radiological imaging was assessed and the following data were extracted: the atlantodental intervals, the space available for cord, presence of spinal cord signal change on T2 weighted image, C1–C2 angle, C2–C7 angle and fusion rates. Findings All patients achieved a minimum seven-year follow up. 95% patients with neck and suboccipital pain improved after surgery; in their Visual Analogue pain scores, there was a greater than 50% improvement in their VAS scores with a drop of 5 points on the VAS (P<0.05). 92% of patients improved in the Ranawat myelopathy grade; the Myelopathy Disability Index assessment showed a preoperative mean score of 35.62 with postoperative mean 12.75(P<0.05). There was not any significant atlantoaxial instability at each follow-up time. The space available for cord increased in all patients. Postoperative sagittal kyphosis of the subaxial spine was not observed. After six months after surgery, bone grafts of all patients were fused. No complications related to surgery were found in the period of follow-up. Conclusions The long-term outcomes of this case series demonstrate that under the condition of thorough preoperative preparations, bilateral C1–C2 transarticular screw and C1 laminar hook fixation and bone graft fusion is a reliable posterior atlantoaxial fusion technique for reducible atlantoaxial dislocation.
Prosodic and other Long-Term Features for Speaker Diarization

Speaker diarization is defined as the task of determining ldquowho spoke whenrdquo given an audio track and no other prior knowledge of any kind. The following article shows how a state-of-the-art speaker diarization system can be improved by combining traditional short-term features (MFCCs) with prosodic and other long-term features. First, we present a framework to study the speaker discriminability of 70 different long-term features. Then, we show how the top-ranked long-term features can be combined with short-term features to increase the accuracy of speaker diarization. The results were measured on standardized datasets (NIST RT) and show a consistent improvement of about 30% relative in diarization error rate compared to the best system presented at the NIST evaluation in 2007.
Toxicity Assessment of Asteraceae Centaurea Repens L Extract in Mice

The species Asteraceae Centaurea repens (Asteraceae), known as Acroptilon repens, and Talkhe in persian is used in folk medicine as an emetic, anti-epileptic, and anti-malaria herb in many parts of the world but its toxic effects have not determined yet. This study aimed to evaluate the acute and subchronic toxicity of this extract to find its possible adverse health effects through clinical, hematological, biochemical, and histopathological endpoints in both gender of mice. Aerial parts of the plant were air-dried and the terpene extract of aerial parts of plant was provided by percolation using methanol, petroleum ether, and diethyl ether. All clinical, biochemical and histopathological changes were assessed in appropriate endpoints and compared with control group. Although no mortality was seen in acute study by administrating doses up to 2000 mg/kg, repeated dose study on 1000 mg/kg doses in 28 days in both genders showed liver necrosis and rise of liver enzymes (p-value < 0.05). Histopathological studies didn’t show any other organ toxicity in dosed up to 1000 mg/kg. At the same time this study showed for the first the antihyperlipidemic properties of the aerial extract of Acroptilin in mice model. The pharmacological and histopathological results of the present study proved that the total parts of Acroptilon repens could be studied for supporting the traditional assertion in folk medicine to heal hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and cancer in lower doses although we performed the present study and concluded liver toxicity by subchronic use of Acropitolon repens extract.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License 9 + -intersection Calculi for Topological Reasoning on Heterogeneous Objects

This paper develops a series of qualitative spatial calculi that feature topological relations. While most qualitative spatial calculi have targeted spatial relations between single-type objects, our calculi support spatial relations between heterogeneous combinations of objects. Thus, with our calculi, we can disambiguate topological arrangements of objects without regard to the types of the objects. Topological relations between points, lines, regions, and their combinations are distinguished systematically by the 9 +-intersection and assigned unique names that indicate their characteristics. The 9 +-intersection is a refinement of the 9-intersection, which is has been frequently used in GIScience communities as a model of topological relations. Based on the 9 +-intersection we can generalize the rules for deriving compositions and, accordingly, a variety of composition tables are generated systematically as a foundation of new calculi. By integrating all relevant sets of topological relations, composition tables, and lists of converse relations, the algebraic framework of ordinary spatial calculi is successfully reused in our new spatial calculi for conducting constraint-based spatial reasoning. We demonstrate that our 9 +-intersection calculi realize finer spatial reasoning than the former 9-intersection calculi. 2 KURATA www.josis. org
Real time stereo-based biologically inspired 3D motion classifier cells

In this paper, we present a real time biologically motivated 3D motion classifier cells integrating the depth information generated from a stereo input implemented in an active vision system. The proposed approach is accurately able to detect and estimate multiple interfered 3D complex motions under the absence of predefined spatial coherence. Moreover, the system has ability to examine the response of input 3D motion vector fields to a certain 3D motion patterns (3D motion classifier cells) such as motion in the Z direction representing movements towards the system, which is very important to overcome typical problem in autonomous mobile robotic vision such as collision detection and inhibition of the ego-motion defects of a moving camera head. The output of the algorithm is part in a multi-object segmentation approach implemented in an active vision system.
Action Evaluation Is Modulated Dominantly by Internal Sensorimotor Information and Partly by Noncausal External Cue

Previous studies demonstrated that human motor actions are not always monitored by perceptual awareness and that implicit motor control plays a key role in performing actions. In addition, appropriate evaluation of our own motor behavior is vital for human life. Here we combined a reaching task with a visual backward masking paradigm to induce an implicit motor response that is congruent or incongruent with the visual perception. We used this to investigate (i) how we evaluate such implicit motor response that could be inconsistent with perceptual awareness and (ii) the possible contributions of reaching error, external visual cues, and internal sensorimotor information to this evaluation. Participants were instructed, after each trial, to rate their own reaching performance on a 5-point scale (i.e., smooth – clumsy). They also needed to identify a color presented at a fixation point that could be changed just after the reaching start. The color was linked to the prime-mask congruency (i.e., congruent-green, incongruent-blue) in the practice phase, and then inconsistent pairs (congruent-blue or incongruent-green) were introduced in the test phase. We found early trajectory deviations induced by the invisible prime stimulus, and such implicit motor responses are significantly correlated with the action evaluation score. The results suggest the “conscious” action evaluation is properly monitoring online sensory outcomes derived by implicit motor control. Furthermore, statistical path analyses showed that internal sensorimotor information from the motor behavior modulated by the invisible prime was the predominant cue for the action evaluation, while the color-cue association learned in the practice phase in some cases biases the action evaluation in the test phase.
Elevated Blood Pressure in Transgenic Mice With Brain-Specific Expression of Human Angiotensinogen Driven by the Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein Promoter

In addition to the circulatory renin (REN)–angiotensin system (RAS), a tissue RAS having an important role in cardiovascular function also exists in the central nervous system. In the brain, angiotensinogen (AGT) is expressed in astrocytes and in some neurons important to cardiovascular control, but its functional role remains undefined. We generated a transgenic mouse encoding the human AGT (hAGT) gene under the control of the human glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) promoter to experimentally dissect the role of brain versus systemically derived AGT. This promoter targets expression of transgene products to astrocytes, the most abundant cell type expressing AGT in brain. All transgenic lines exhibited hAGT mRNA expression in brain, with variable expression in other tissues. In one line examined in detail, transgene expression was high in brain and low in tissues outside the central nervous system, and the level of plasma hAGT was not elevated over baseline. In the brain, hAGT protein was mainly localized in astrocytes, but was present in neurons in the subfornical organ. Intracerebroventricular (ICV) injection of human REN (hREN) in conscious unrestrained mice elicited a pressor response, which was abolished by ICV preinjection of losartan. Double-transgenic mice expressing the hREN gene and the GFAP-hAGT transgene exhibited a 15–mm Hg increase in blood pressure and an increased preference for salt. Blood pressure in the hREN/GFAP-hAGT mice was lowered after ICV, but not intravenous losartan. These studies suggest that AGT synthesis in the brain has an important role in the regulation of blood pressure and electrolyte balance.
Alias-Free Voxelization of Geometric Objects

Introduces a new concept for alias-free voxelization of geometric objects based on a voxelization model (V-model). The V-model of an object is its representation in 3D continuous space by a trivariate density function. This function is sampled during the voxelization and the resulting values are stored in a volume buffer. This concept enables us to study general issues of sampling and rendering separately from object-specific design issues. It provides us with a possibility to design such V-models, which are correct from the point of view of both the sampling and rendering, thus leading to both alias-free volumetric representation and alias-free rendered images. We performed numerous experiments with different combinations of V-models and reconstruction techniques. We have shown that the V-model with a Gaussian surface density profile combined with tricubic interpolation and Gabor derivative reconstruction outperforms the previously published technique with a linear density profile. This enables higher fidelity of images rendered from volume data due to increased sharpness of edges and thinner surface patches.
Speaking mode variability in multimodal speech production

The speech acoustics and the phonetically relevant motion of the face during speech are determined by the time-varying behavior of the vocal tract. A benefit of this linkage is that we are able to estimate face motion from the spectral acoustics during speech production using simple neural networks. Thus far, however, the scope of reliable estimation has been limited to individual sentences; network training degrades sharply when multiple sentences are analyzed together. While there is a number of potential avenues for improving network generalization, this paper investigates the possibility that the experimental recording procedures introduce artificial boundary constraints between sentence length utterances. Specifically, the same sentence materials were recorded individually and as part of longer, paragraph length utterances. The scope of reliable network estimation was found to depend both on the length of the utterance (sentence versus paragraph) and, not surprisingly, on phonetic content: estimation of face motion from speech acoustics was reliable for larger sentence training sets when sentences were recorded in continuous paragraph readings; and greater phonetic diversity reduced reliability.
Image correlation based method for the analysis of collagen fibers patterns

The collagen fibers are one of the most important structural proteins in skin, being responsible for its strength and flexibility. It is known that their properties, like fibers density, ordination and mean diameter can be affected by several skin conditions, what makes these properties a good parameter to be used on the diagnosis and evaluation of skin aging, cancer, healing, among other conditions. There is, however, a need for methods capable of analyzing quantitatively the organization patterns of these fibers. To address this need, we developed a method based on the autocorrelation function of the images that allows the construction of vector field plots of the fibers directions and does not require any kind of curve fitting or optimization. The analyzed images were obtained through Second Harmonic Generation Imaging Microscopy. This paper presents a concise review on the autocorrelation function and some of its applications to image processing, details the developed method and the results obtained through the analysis of hystopathological slides of landrace porcine skin. The method has high accuracy on the determination of the fibers direction and presents high performance. We look forward to perform further studies keeping track of different skin conditions over time.
An Enhanced Technique for Exemplar based Image Inpainting

Image inpainting is an emerging area of image processing; with the help of this we can fill the misplaced or lost regions of a given image. In real life for example in the museum world the job of inpainting of precious images or paintings is fulfilled with the help of an expert of arts. Like this in the digital world the job of image inpainting is fulfilled with the help of inpainting algorithms. Various algorithms have presented in the past to achieve the task of image inpainting. In this paper, we have suggested a novel exemplar based image inpainting technique. The suggested technique will remove whole object from a given image or a portion of the object & it will offer high quality outcomes.
Akt pathway activation converts anaplastic astrocytoma to glioblastoma multiforme in a human astrocyte model of glioma.

Human malignant gliomas are thought to develop as the result of stepwise accumulations of multiple genetic alterations. Recently, we showed that E6/E7-mediated inactivation of p53/pRb, ras pathway activation (initiated by expression of mutant H-Ras), and expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) in combination converted normal human astrocytes into cells that formed intracranial tumors resembling human anaplastic astrocytoma (AA). In this study, we created human astrocytes that, in addition to expressing E6/E7, hTERT, and Ras, also expressed a constitutive activated form of Akt intended to mimic the Akt activation noted in grade IV glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Although these cells grew no differently than astrocytes expressing E6, E7, and H-Ras in vitro or in the first 28 days following s.c. implantation, they ultimately formed tumors four to six times larger than those formed by the E6/E7/hTERT/Ras cells. Unlike the poorly vascularized, necrosis-free AA formed by E6/E7/hTERT/Ras cells, the tumors formed by s.c. or intracranial injection of Akt-expressing cells had large areas of necrosis surrounded by neovascularization and were consistent in appearance with grade IV human GBM. These results show that activation of the Akt pathway is sufficient to allow conversion of human AA to human GBM.
Long-Term Outcome of Isolated Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery in Patients With Severe Left Ventricular Dysfunction

Background—Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is indicated in patients with coronary artery disease and impaired ventricular function. However, earlier studies have suggested that prognosis of patients with severe left ventricular dysfunction is extremely poor. We used the APPROACH registry to derive contemporary estimates of prognosis associated with CABG for this high-risk patient population. Methods and Results—The study group consisted of 7841 patients who had isolated CABG in the province of Alberta, Canada between 1996 and 2001. Patients with markedly reduced left ventricular function (ejection fraction [EF] <30%, Lo EF, n =430) were compared with those with moderate reduction in ventricular function (EF 30% to 50%, Med EF, n =2581) and those with normal left ventricular function (EF >50%, normal [Nl] EF, n=4830). The operative mortality was higher in the patient group with Lo EF (4.6%) compared with Med EF and Nl EF groups (3.4% and 1.9%, respectively, P<0.001). At 5 years, survival was 77.7% for Lo EF patients compared with 85.5% and 91.2% for Med EF and Nl EF patients, respectively (P<0.001). After controlling for other independent variables, the adjusted hazard ratio for death was 1.98 (95% CI, 1.49 to 2.62) for Lo EF relative to Nl EF. The mortality rate at 1 year was significantly lower for Lo EF patients who underwent CABG than it was for nonrevascularized Lo EF patients (risk-adjusted odds ratio, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.24 to 0.55). Conclusions—In the modern era of cardiac surgery, CABG can be performed in Lo EF cases with an acceptable perioperative mortality risk. Our estimate of 5-year survival in this high-risk group is better than previously reported in the literature from earlier periods.