Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vertebroplasty augmentation procedures: examining the controversy.

BACKGROUND Vertebral compression fractures are a common pathology affecting primarily the elderly, postmenopausal women, and those with metastatic vertebral disease. Vertebral augmentation procedures are popular treatment options for stability and pain relief. Preliminary studies have suggested that such procedures are adequately efficacious. However, the first randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009 showed that these procedures were not significantly different than placebo with regards to pain relief and quality of life. These studies were met with considerable criticism. The matter was further complicated when The Lancet published an RCT of its own that demonstrated the superiority of vertebroplasty over conservative management. The conflicting evidence has sparked ongoing debate in the medical community. All sides have provided arguments supported by evidence of varying strength and validity. OBJECTIVE To provide a concise and comprehensive presentation of the controversy surrounding vertebral augmentation procedures and the evidence cited by proponents on both sides of the debate. METHODS We began by researching the major randomized controlled trials both for and against vertebroplasty. These articles were already known to us, and were used as a starting point. We then performed a literature search in PubMed for articles dated from 2000 through 2012. The bibliographies of major articles and reviews were also cross-referenced for additional sources. RESULTS A number of articles that included comprehensive and systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and commentaries about noted studies were found. These provided a broad, detailed overview of the subject. Many of the common themes of these articles included limitations in the design, methods, and patient selection with regard to the RCTs and other available studies. LIMITATIONS This review does not analyze the quality of evidence available nor does it provide an opinion in this regard. The conclusions of the present article are, therefore, general and descriptive in nature. CONCLUSIONS The arguments presented by proponents of both sides of the debate appear to have validity. All of the major studies cited as evidence for or against vertebral augmentation procedures have limitations in their quality. Consequently, the debate cannot be concluded, convincingly, until more elaborate studies are conducted involving larger numbers of patients with clear procedure methods agreed upon by the major authorities in the field.
English shellcode

History indicates that the security community commonly takes a divide-and-conquer approach to battling malware threats: identify the essential and inalienable components of an attack, then develop detection and prevention techniques that directly target one or more of the essential components. This abstraction is evident in much of the literature for buffer overflow attacks including, for instance, stack protection and NOP sled detection. It comes as no surprise then that we approach shellcode detection and prevention in a similar fashion. However, the common belief that components of polymorphic shellcode (e.g., the decoder) cannot reliably be hidden suggests a more implicit and broader assumption that continues to drive contemporary research: namely, that valid and complete representations of shellcode are fundamentally different in structure than benign payloads. While the first tenet of this assumption is philosophically undeniable (i.e., a string of bytes is either shellcode or it is not), truth of the latter claim is less obvious if there exist encoding techniques capable of producing shellcode with features nearly indistinguishable from non-executable content. In this paper, we challenge the assumption that shellcode must conform to superficial and discernible representations. Specifically, we demonstrate a technique for automatically producing English Shellcode, transforming arbitrary shellcode into a representation that is superficially similar to English prose. The shellcode is completely self-contained---i.e., it does not require an external loader and executes as valid IA32 code)---and can typically be generated in under an hour on commodity hardware. Our primary objective in this paper is to promote discussion and stimulate new ideas for thinking ahead about preventive measures for tackling evolutions in code-injection attacks.
Function-level profiling for embedded software with QEMU

Function-level profiling is crucial for optimised embedded software which has severe constraints on hardware resources, low power consumption, real-time responses, and so on. In this work, we provide a fast and reliable solution by utilising an instruction set simulator named QEMU and creating an analyser tool. We developed a tracing module inside the simulator to trace execution information of software at run-time and record it in a log file. Our implementation takes advantage of the dynamic binary translation of QEMU to keep its speed fast and use an analyser tool to analyse the log file and create a function-level profile. We implemented our solution methodology for the ARM architecture, and evaluated it with various kinds of embedded applications.
The pedagogical importance of consonantal features of the English of Malaysia and Singapore

The consonantal system typical of mesolectal speech of English in Malaysia and Singapore (EMS) is described, and the differences noted between this and the general English consonant system. Four categories of difference may be found (systemic, realisational, struc tural and selectional), of which the most serious consequences is loss of intelligibility. The importance of these differences is assessed by reference to various criteria, including the occurrence and prestige/ stigmatisation of EMS features in other accents, the maintenance of perceptual distance between realisations, and the frequency of occur rence of features in connected speech. On the basis of these criteria, priorities are established for EMS language teachers.
The General Lineage Concept of Species and the Defining Properties of the Species Category

There is nothing more common than that the meaning of an expression varies in such a way that a phenomenon is now considered as a symptom and now as a criterion of a state of affairs. And then for the most part in such a case the change of meaning is nof noticed. In science it is usual to turn phenomena which allow exact measurements into defining criteria of an expression; and one is then inclined to think that now the genuine meaning has been found. A n enormous number of confusions arise in this way. -Wittgenstein (1967)
DIRECT AND INDIRECT ROUTES TO POLITICIZING PERSONAL EXPERIENCE DOES KNOWLEDGE MAKE A DIFFERENCE

This study examines the effects of issue-specific knowledge on the extent to which personal unemployment experiences influence presidential approval. The well informed are found to be more likely to connect personal experiences directly to political preferences, yet less likely to generalize from their own personal experiences in assessing the state of the nation as a whole. Since perceptions of the state of national conditions have a well-documented influence on presidential approval, simultaneously considering direct and indirect paths helps to resolve contradictory implications in past findings on the role of information in conditioning the politicization of personal economic experience. The weak overall impact of self-interest on political preferences is widely known and well documented (for a review, see Sears and Funk 1990). Subsequent research in this vein has shifted toward locating conditions under which personal experiences are most likely to be politicized (see, e.g., Feldman 1985). The concepts used to locate groups most likely to rely on personal experiences-have run the gamut from distinctions made on the basis of socioeconomic position (Weatherford 1983), habitual versus occasional voting (Cohen and Uhlaner 1991), levels of issue-specific knowledge (Conover, Feldman, and Knight 1986), and levels of news media use (Mutz 1992; Weatherford 1983). Scholars generally concur about the distinction relevant to these comparisons: those with high levels of political knowledge, heavy use of mass media, high levels of political interest, and regular involvement in the political process are expected to differ in their decision-making DIANA C. MUTZ is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of WisconsinMadison. The author would like to thank the Letters and Sciences Survey Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for making these data available and Dick Brody for his comments on an earlier draft of this study. Public Opinion Quarterly Volume 57:483-502 ? 1993 by the American Association for Public Opinion Research All rights reserved. 0033-362X/93/5704-0006$02.50 This content downloaded from 207.46. 13.103 on Thu, 20 Oct 2016 04:02:11 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. org/terms
Stereotactic body radiotherapy using CyberKnife for locally advanced unresectable and metastatic pancreatic cancer.

AIM To evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of stereotactic body radiotherapy using CyberKnife for locally advanced unresectable and metastatic pancreatic cancer. METHODS From June 2010 to May 2014, 25 patients with locally advanced unresectable and metastatic pancreatic cancer underwent stereotactic body radiotherapy. Nine patients presented with unresectable locally advanced disease and 16 had metastatic disease. Primary end-points of this study were overall survival, relief of abdominal pain, and toxicity. RESULTS Fourteen patients were treated with a total dose of 30-36 Gy in three fractions and the remainder with 40-48 Gy in four fractions. Median follow-up was 11 mo (range: 2-25 mo). The median survival duration calculated from the time of stereotactic body radiotherapy for the entire group, the locally advanced group, and the metastatic group was 9.0 mo, 13.5 mo, and 8.5 mo, respectively. Overall survival was 37% and 18% at one and two years, respectively. Abdominal pain relief was achieved within 2 wk of completing radiotherapy in the patients who received successful palliation (13 of 20 patients had significant pain). Five patients (20%) had grade 1 nausea, and one (4%) had grade 2 nausea. No acute grade 3+ toxicity was seen. CONCLUSION Stereotactic body radiotherapy using the CyberKnife system is a promising, noninvasive, palliative treatment with acceptable toxicity for locally advanced unresectable and metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Mitoxantrone changes spectrin-aminophospholipid interactions

Understanding drug-membrane and drug-membrane protein interactions would be a crucial step towards understanding the action and biological properties of anthracyclines, as the cell membrane with its integral and peripheral proteins is the first barrier encountered by these drugs. In this paper, we briefly describe mitoxantrone-monolayer and mitoxantrone-bilayer interactions, focusing on the effect of mitoxantrone on the interactions between erythroid or nonerythroid spectrin with phosphatidylethanolamine-enriched mono- and bilayers. We found that mitoxantrone markedly modifies the interaction of erythroid and nonerythroid spectrins with phosphatidylethanolamine/phosphatitydcholine (PE/PC) monolayers. The change in Δπ induced by spectrins is several-fold larger in the presence of 72 nM mitoxantrone than in its absence: spectrin/mitoxantrone complexes induced a strong compression of the monolayer. Spin-labelling experiments showed that spectrin/mitoxantrone complexes caused significant changes in the order parameter measured using a 5′-doxyl stearate probe in the bilayer, but they practically did not affect the mobility of 16′-doxyl stearate. These results indicate close-to-surface interactions/penetrations without significant effect on the mid-region of the hydrophobic core of the bilayer. The obtained apparent equilibrium dissociation constants indicated relatively similar mitoxantrone-phospholipid and mitoxantrone-spectrin (erythroid and nonerythroid) binding affinities. These results might in part, explain the effect of mitoxantrone on spectrin distribution in the living cells.
Antioxidant restriction and oxidative stress in short-duration exhaustive exercise.

PURPOSE To determine the effect of dietary antioxidant restriction on oxidative stress, antioxidant defenses, and exercise performance in athletes. Oxidative stress has been shown to increase during exercise. To alleviate oxidative stress, a high intake of antioxidant rich foods or supplements may be required in trained athletes. METHODS Plasma oxidative stress and antioxidant defenses were examined in 17 trained athletes who underwent two separate exercise tests. Before the initial exercise test participants followed their habitual (high) antioxidant (H-AO) diets. Then they followed a 2-wk restricted-antioxidant (R-AO) diet before the second exercise test. Blood was taken at rest, after submaximal and high-intensity exhaustive exercise, and after 1 h of recovery. RESULTS The R-AO diet induced a threefold reduction in antioxidant intake when compared with habitual-antioxidant (H-AO) diets. F(2)-isoprostane concentration (marker of oxidative stress) was significantly higher after submaximal exercise (38%), exhaustion (45%), and 1 h of recovery (31%) when following the R-AO diet compared with the H-AO diet. Rate of perceived exertion was increased on the R-AO diet whilst exercise time to exhaustion was not affected. Total antioxidant capacity and circulating antioxidant concentrations, although not significantly different, tended to be lower when following the R-AO diet. CONCLUSION Athletes regularly participating in up to 40 min of acute high-intensity exercise may require higher intakes of exogenous antioxidants to defend against increased oxidative stress during exercise, which can be met through an adequate intake of high-antioxidant foods. Thus, there seems no valid reason to recommend antioxidant supplements to athletes participating in acute high-intensity exercise events up to 40 min in duration, except in those known to be consuming a low-antioxidant diet for prolonged periods.
Orthographic Resources Affect Reading Acquisition—If They Are Used

This article replies to H. Stevenson (1984), who has interpreted his cross-linguistic studies as showing that differences in orthographies do not materially affect the reading-acquisition process, or the prognosis for successful learning. The reply proceeds by analyzing differences in the formatives and combinatorial principles of varying scripts, and differences in learning consequent on these. Stevenson's results are shown to derive from a faulty interpretation of comparisons among learning rates of Japanese, Chinese, and American learners.
Gender Differences Among New Claimants of Incapacity Benefit

Abstract The academic literature on incapacity benefits in Britain is dominated by debates about ‘hidden unemployment’, particularly in relation to working-age men in the industrial and former coalmining areas. Although women account for two-fifths of all claimants, they have been given relatively little attention in the literature on incapacity benefits. This article draws on a representative survey of recent claimants of Incapacity Benefit (IB) in Britain to compare the situation of men and women aged under 60. It shows that there are significant differences in their characteristics and circumstances and in their routes onto this benefit. It is concluded that academic debates in Britain need to take into account the differences between women and men in order to reach a more complete understanding of the role of IB in the post-industrial economy.
DOI:10.1068/p2713 Exocentric pointing in three-dimensional space

Localisation of one object in relation to another plays an important role in a great many of the tasks performed by humans on a daily basis. Think, for example, of preventing a collision while driving a car, threading a needle, judging who is looking at whom in a group of people, or simply reaching for a cup of tea. In these examples the judgment of direction is an important parameter which must be retrieved by the visual system. More specifically, taking the example of reaching for a cup of tea, van Sonderen et al (1988) have shown that relative direction is a major determinant in the programming of movement, and that relative direction is easily accessed. Although the judgment of direction is important, relatively little study has been done into how well humans can perform this One of the two goals of the experiments reported here was to explore how reliably humans can judge exocentric direction in near 3-D space. Studying the direction in which an object is located relative to another (exocentric direction) can also provide useful information about the relationship between visually perceived space (visual space) and physical space (Ellis et al 1991; Koenderink and van Doorn 1998). Until now, experiments involving visual space have been restricted to a single plane, usually the horizontal plane at eye level or a frontoparallel plane (Indow and Watanabe 1984). The second goal of the experiment was to examine whether the results obtained in a single plane also hold for exocentric pointing through all three dimensions. Indow and Watanabe have shown that the results of an alley experiment differ for the frontoparallel plane from those for a horizontal plane. What does this imply for spatial judgments that are not restricted to one of these planes? Is visual space isotropic?
Guiding Organizational Identity Through Aged Adolescence

In this article, the authors reflect on the past two decades of research on organizational identity, looking to its history and to its future. They do not provide a review of the literature, nor do they promote a particular perspective on the concept. Instead, they advocate pluralism in studying organizational identity while encouraging clarity and transparency in the articulation of definitions and core theoretical suppositions. Believing there is no one best approach to the study of organizational identity, their intent is to establish a reference point that can orient future work on organizational identity. They focus on three questions they feel are critical: What is the nomological net that embeds organizational identity? Is organizational identity “real” (or simply metaphoric)? and How do we define and conceptualize organizational identity? Last, they try to anticipate organizational identity issues on the horizon to suggest future directions for theory and research.
MANYCORE NETWORKED SYSTEMS

Multicore computer systems are adopting more cores to meet the increasing performance requirement. Network topology to make communication in such a multicore/manycore system (like Intel 80-Core Research Chip and IBM Roadrunner) is extremely important to achieve high performance by supplying low energy. Designing and analysing such a gigantic system is very complicated and it costs up to millions of dollars. Performance modelling technique is attracting researches from many organizations and different disciplines to conduct research on multicore/manycorenetworked systems in an inexpensive way. However, there is no standard in performance modelling of such complex systems. This paper proposes a methodology of developing conceptual models of multicore/manycorenetworked systems for performance analysis. Important features of this methodology include data acquisition to improve accuracy by capturing the important details about the system under consideration, system-to-model abstraction to make the modelling manageable without eliminating any characteristics of the target system, and model validation to make sure that the model meets the requirements with an optimal choice of the hardware and software. Networked systems with up to 64 cores are modelled; according to the experimental results, the proposed performance modelling methodology is very promising.
Vision Based Robotic System for Military Applications -- Design and Real Time Validation

This paper presents the design, development and validation of vision based autonomous robotic system for military applications. Sum of Absolute Difference (SAD) algorithm is used for the implementation of the proposed image processing algorithm. It works on the principle of image subtraction. The developed algorithm is validated in real time by change-based moving object detection method. The novelty of this work is the application of the developed autonomous robot for the detection of mines in the war field. Developed algorithm is validated both in offline using MATLAB simulation and in real time by conducting an experiment. Once the confidence of using the algorithm is increased, developed algorithm is coded into the Microcontroller based hardware and is validated in real time. Real time experimental results match well with those of the offline simulation results. However, there is only a small mismatch in distance and accuracy of the target detection, which is due to the limitations of the hardware used for the implementation.
Similarities and Differences In Ideas Generated by Physics Learners: US College Students Vs. Tibetan Buddhist Monks

We have used PER‐based course materials to teach various physics topics to Tibetan Buddhist monks over the last four years. While listening to the monks’ ideas through interpreters, we found some striking similarities with ideas that we hear in our own classrooms in the US. However, the degree of similarity of monks’ ideas with those of US students varied with the topic. For example, ideas that emerged in the topic of magnetism were often consistent with western ideas while ideas about color addition were sometimes strikingly different from ideas that American students use. The monks’ ways of talking lead us to believe that cultural background partially determines how they think initially about particular physics topics. This poster will give examples of similarities and of differences, and attempt to identify reasons for both.
Evaluation of an electromagnetic system with haptic feedback for control of untethered, soft grippers affected by disturbances

Current wireless, small-scale robots have restricted manipulation capabilities, and limited intuitive tools to control their motion. This paper presents a novel teleoperation system with haptic feedback for the control of untethered soft grippers. The system is able to move and open/close the grippers by regulating the magnetic field and temperature in the workspace. Users can intuitively control the grippers using a grounded haptic interface, that is also capable of providing compelling force feedback information as the gripper interacts with the environment. The magnetic closed-loop control algorithm is designed starting from a Finite Element Model analysis. The electromagnetic model used is validated by a measurement of the magnetic field with a resolution of 0.1 mT and sampling rate of 6.8×106 samples/m2. The system shows an accuracy in positioning the gripper of 0.08 mm at a velocity of 0.81 mm/s. The robustness of the control and tracking algorithms are tested by spraying the workspace with water drops that cause glares and related disturbances of up to 0.41 mm.