Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brief Report: A Phase II Study of Sunitinib in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma. The NCIC Clinical Trials Group

Introduction: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive malignancy that most often presents at an advanced, incurable stage. After the failure of standard first-line cisplatin/antifolate chemotherapy, there is no accepted treatment. The vascular endothelial growth factor pathway may be a relevant therapeutic target in MPM. Methods: This open-labeled phase II trial evaluated single-agent sunitinib, an inhibitor of multiple receptor tyrosine kinases including the vascular endothelial growth factor receptors, given at 50 mg daily orally for 4 weeks followed by a 2-week rest, in patients with advanced MPM. Two cohorts were studied: cohort 1, in which patients had previously received cisplatin-based chemotherapy, and cohort 2, consisting of previously untreated patients. A two-stage design was used for both cohorts; the primary outcome was objective response rate as determined by the RECIST criteria modified for MPM. Secondary outcomes included rates and duration of disease control, progression-free survival and overall survival, and safety and tolerability. Results: A total of 35 eligible patients were enrolled (17 to cohort 1 and 18 to cohort 2). Neither cohort met the criteria for continuing to the second stage of accrual; only one objective response, confirmed by independent review, was observed in a previously untreated patient. Median progression-free and overall survivals were 2.8 and 8.3 months in cohort 1, and 2.7 and 6.7 months in cohort 2, respectively. Observed toxicity was within that expected for sunitinib. Conclusions: Sunitinib, similar to other angiogenesis inhibitors, has limited activity in MPM. Future trials of angiogenesis inhibitors given as single agents in unselected patients with MPM are not warranted.
A Multi-agent Smart User Model for Cross-domain Recommender Systems

This paper describes our approach to the next generation of open, distributed and heterogeneous recommender systems using Smart User Models (SUM). Our work focuses on integrating multiple agent-based services based on a unique representation of the user in what is called a Multi-agent Smart User Model. Intelligent agents are used in order to obtain a single user model instead of having several versions of the same user spread throughout various services. A methodology has been developed using incremental aggregation of information, which favors nonintrusive behavior of the user model in order to determine objective, subjective and emotional user features.
The Bipartite Formula Complexity of Inner-Product is Quadratic

A bipartite formula on binary variables x1, . , xn and y1, . , yn is a binary tree whose internal nodes are marked with AND or OR gates and whose leaves can compute any function of either the x or y variables. We show that any bipartite formula for the Inner-Product modulo 2 function, namely IPn(x, y) = ∑n i=1 xiyi mod 2, must be of size Ω̃(n ). The result is tight up to logarithmic factors. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first super-linear lower bound on the bipartite formula complexity of any explicit function. We give two simple proofs that rely on the deep results of Reichardt [Rei11] and Forster [For02]. Moreover, the second proof establishes an average-case lower bound for the InnerProduct function. Namely, we show that any bipartite formula that agrees with IPn on at least 1 2 + 1 nlog n of the inputs must be of size Ω̃(n).
The Stem Cell Pluripotency Factor NANOG Activates Transcription with Two Unusually Potent Subdomains at Its C Terminus*

Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent progenitors for virtually all cell types in our body and thus possess unlimited therapeutic potentials for regenerative medicine. NANOG, an NK-2 type homeodomain gene, has been proposed to play a key role in maintaining stem cell pluripotency presumably by regulating the expression of genes critical to stem cell renewal and differentiation. Here, we provide the evidence that NANOG behaves as a transcription activator with two unusually strong activation domains embedded in its C terminus. First, we identified these two transactivators by employing the Gal4-DNA binding domain fusion and reporter system and named them WR and CD2. Whereas CD2 contains no obvious structural motif, the WR or Trp repeat contains 10 pentapeptide repeats starting with a Trp in each unit. Substitution of Trp with Ala in each repeat completely abolished its activity, whereas mutations at the conserved Ser, Gln, and Asn had relatively minor or no effect on WR activity. We then validated the activities of WR and CD2 in NANOG by constructing a reporter plasmid bearing five NANOG binding sites. Deletion of both WR and CD2 from NANOG completely eliminated its transactivation function. Paradoxically, whereas the removal of CD2 reduced NANOG activity by ∼30–70%, the removal of WR not only did not diminish but actually enhanced its activity by ∼50–100% depending on the cell lines analyzed. These data suggest that either WR or CD2 is sufficient for NANOG to function as a transactivator.
An immersive telepresence system with a locomotion interface using high-resolution omnidirectional movies

This paper describes a novel telepresence system which enables users to walk through a photorealistic virtualized environment by actual walking. To realize such a system, a wide-angle high-resolution movie is projected on an immersive multi-screen display to present users the virtualized environments and a treadmill is controlled according to detected user's locomotion. In this study, we use an omnidirectional multi-camera system to acquire images of a real outdoor scene. The proposed system provides users with rich sense of walking in a remote site.
Error Analysis and Calibration Method of a Multiple Field-of-View Navigation System

The Multiple Field-of-view Navigation System (MFNS) is a spacecraft subsystem built to realize the autonomous navigation of the Spacecraft Inside Tiangong Space Station. This paper introduces the basics of the MFNS, including its architecture, mathematical model and analysis, and numerical simulation of system errors. According to the performance requirement of the MFNS, the calibration of both intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the system is assumed to be essential and pivotal. Hence, a novel method based on the geometrical constraints in object space, called checkerboard-fixed post-processing calibration (CPC), is proposed to solve the problem of simultaneously obtaining the intrinsic parameters of the cameras integrated in the MFNS and the transformation between the MFNS coordinate and the cameras’ coordinates. This method utilizes a two-axis turntable and a prior alignment of the coordinates is needed. Theoretical derivation and practical operation of the CPC method are introduced. The calibration experiment results of the MFNS indicate that the extrinsic parameter accuracy of the CPC reaches 0.1° for each Euler angle and 0.6 mm for each position vector component (1σ). A navigation experiment verifies the calibration result and the performance of the MFNS. The MFNS is found to work properly, and the accuracy of the position vector components and Euler angle reaches 1.82 mm and 0.17° (1σ) respectively. The basic mechanism of the MFNS may be utilized as a reference for the design and analysis of multiple-camera systems. Moreover, the calibration method proposed has practical value for its convenience for use and potential for integration into a toolkit.
How to Load Test e-Commerce Applications

The load on a Web server depends on the behavior of users, both individually and in the aggregate. The behavior of the individual user includes abandoning a site that is too slow; this is both a vital result of site performance and a variable that affects the shape of the load on a site. The behavior of a population of users causes variance in the instantaneous load on a Web server, which strongly affects server performance but is too often neglected in practical load testing.
Creativity and evolution: a metadesign perspective

Abstract In a world that is not predictable, improvisation and evolution are more than a luxury: they are a necessity. The challenge of design is not a matter of getting rid of the emergent, but rather of making it an opportunity for more creative and more sustainable solutions. User-centered and participatory design approaches have focused primarily on activities taking place at design time. These approaches have not given enough emphasis and they have provided few mechanisms to support systems as living entities that can evolve over time. Metadesign is a unique design approach concerned with opening up solution spaces rather than complete solutions (hence the prefix meta-), and aimed at creating social and technical infrastructures in which new forms of collaborative design can take place. This approach extends the traditional notion of design beyond the original development of a system to include co-adaptive processes between users and systems that enable the users to act as designers in personally meaningful activities and be creative.
Extraction, integration and exploration of crowdsourced geospatial content from multiple web sources

Our work focuses around a Web application that retrieves user-generated geospatial content from multiple popular Web sources, and applies schema mapping and entity matching techniques to obtain an integrated dataset. Moreover, density-based clustering of the obtained data is performed to reveal of interest for various data categories. An analysis and overview of the underlying data are also provided by computing various statistics that are visualized in a series of charts. Further data exploration and navigation is enabled via keyword search and faceted browsing. This demonstration covers all the steps of the process, from selecting an area and the sources for data collection, to visualizing and navigating the integrated results.
Advanced MDS based localization algorithm for location based services in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are increasingly being used for various information collection in the future. For many applications, a large number of sensors in an active wireless network are more effective and preferable to a few expensive wireless sensors. Location discovery of sensor nodes after they have been deployed is known as a challenge, especially for moving sensors. Algorithms based on radio signal strength indication are considered as the lowest cost method to solve localization problem. But in practice, the accuracy of signal strength indication algorithm varies with the average distances between wireless nodes - the nearer, the better. This paper describes a new integrated dynamic localization algorithm, based on Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) and Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) algorithm. In this concept, signals with RSSI values among beacon nodes could help to generate a real time 2D map of the network by self iterations. Unknown nodes use the map to determine their locations in this region. A software simulator is created to test the performance of the algorithm, and practical experiments also show the development of localization accuracy and efficiency.
Head and Neck Cancer Tumor Segmentation Using Support Vector Machine in Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI

Objective We aimed to propose an automatic method based on Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DCE-MRI) to segment the tumor lesions of head and neck cancer (HNC). Materials and Methods 120 DCE-MRI samples were collected. Five curve features and two principal components of the normalized time-intensity curve (TIC) in 80 samples were calculated as the dataset in training three SVM classifiers. The other 40 samples were used as the testing dataset. The area overlap measure (AOM) and the corresponding ratio (CR) and percent match (PM) were calculated to evaluate the segmentation performance. The training and testing procedure was repeated for 10 times, and the average performance was calculated and compared with similar studies. Results Our method has achieved higher accuracy compared to the previous results in literature in HNC segmentation. The average AOM with the testing dataset was 0.76 ± 0.08, and the mean CR and PM were 79 ± 9% and 86 ± 8%, respectively. Conclusion With improved segmentation performance, our proposed method is of potential in clinical practice for HNC.
Defect in Conversion of Procollagen to Collagen in a Form of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Three patients with a form of the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a generalized disorder of connective tissue, have detectable amounts of procollagen in extracts of their skin and tendon. The activity of procollagen peptidase, the enzyme that converts procollagen to collagen, is reduced in cultures of fibroblasts. The clinical manifestations of this syndrome may be related to impaired enzymatic conversion of procollagen to collagen. Cultures of skin fibroblasts from these patients have an increased rate of synthesis of collagenous protein (collagen and procollagen), possibly related to the inability of these cells to convert procollagen to collagen.
AIDS-related non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: Final analysis of 485 patients treated with risk-adapted intensive chemotherapy.

We aimed to compare AIDS risk-adapted intensive chemotherapy in AIDS-related lymphoma patients before and after the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). 485 patients aged from 18 to 67 years were randomly assigned to chemotherapy after stratification according to an HIV score based on performance status, prior AIDS and CD4-positive cell counts <100/mm 3 . 218 good risk patients (HIV score 0) received ACVBP or CHOP, 177 intermediate risk patients (HIV score 1), CHOP or low-dose CHOP (Ld-CHOP), and 90 poor risk patients (HIV score 2-3), Ld-CHOP or VS (vincristine and steroid). The 5-year overall survival (OS), in the good risk group was 51% for ACVBP versus 47% for CHOP (p=0.85), in the intermediate risk group, 28% for CHOP versus 24% for Ld-CHOP (p=0.19), and in the poor risk group, 11% for Ld-CHOP versus 3% for VS (p=0.14). The time-dependent Cox model demonstrated that the only significant factors for OS were HAART (RR 1.6, p=0.0002), HIV score (RR 1.7, p=0.0001) and the International Prognostic Index (IPI) score (RR 1.5, p=0.0012) but not chemotherapy regimen. Our findings indicate that in ARL patients, HIV score, IPI score and HAART affect survival but not the intensity of the CHOP-based chemotherapy. Consequently, the present NHL-HIV-93 trial was designed to evaluate different dose intensive treatments, according to HIV score. 485 patients were treated with risk-adapted chemotherapy in the NHL-HIV-93 trial. In the good risk group, 5-year OS was estimated at 51% for ACVBP versus 47% for CHOP (p=0.85). In the intermediate risk group, it was 28% for CHOP versus 24% for Ld-CHOP (p=0.19) and, in the poor risk group, 11% for Ld-CHOP versus 3% for VS (p=0.14). These findings indicate that HIV score, but not the intensity of the CHOP-based regimen, affect survival. Because of tolerance issue based on past experience in 1993, we chose to give only 4 cycles of CHOP or ld-CHOP or 3 cycles of ACVBP 14 . Is it possible that the treatment outcome might have been better if more prolonged chemotherapy had been given as it is in NHL not associated with AIDS (i.e. 2 additional cycles beyond complete remission). However, this issue seems to be split between pre-HAART and post-HAART era. In the latter, a minimum of 6 cycles of CHOP and up to 8 seems to be the standard. Similarly, in patients with leptomeningeal disease chemotherapy maintenance should be considered after 9-12 intrathecal Methotrexate treatment to reduce the risk of relapse. cohort the HAART era 10,20 In the present study, had a long follow up of 6 years analyzed the effects of HAART using time-dependent Cox model to adjust for potential confounding factors, introduced by the effects of baseline characteristics and treatment. results confirm factors features (i.e. IPI score) be more important 45,46
Agent Reward Shaping for Alleviating Traffic Congestion

Traffic congestion problems provide a unique environment to study how multi-agent systems promote desired system level behavior. What is particularly interesting in this class of problems is that no individual action is intrinsically "bad" for the system but that combinations of actions among agents lead to undesirable outcomes, As a consequence, agents need to learn how to coordinate their actions with those of other agents, rather than learn a particular set of "good" actions. This problem is ubiquitous in various traffic problems, including selecting departure times for commuters, routes for airlines, and paths for data routers. In this paper we present a multi-agent approach to two traffic problems, where far each driver, an agent selects the most suitable action using reinforcement learning. The agent rewards are based on concepts from collectives and aim to provide the agents with rewards that are both easy to learn and that if learned, lead to good system level behavior. In the first problem, we study how agents learn the best departure times of drivers in a daily commuting environment and how following those departure times alleviates congestion. In the second problem, we study how agents learn to select desirable routes to improve traffic flow and minimize delays for. all drivers. In both sets of experiments,. agents using collective-based rewards produced near optimal performance (93-96% of optimal) whereas agents using system rewards (63-68%) barely outperformed random action selection (62-64%) and agents using local rewards (48-72%) performed worse than random in some instances.
Source (or Part of the following Source): Type Article Title Early Seizures and Cerebral Oedema after Trivial Head Trauma Associated with the Cacna1a S218l Mutation Author(s)

Copyright It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content licence (like Creative Commons). UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (http://dare.uva.nl) (pagedate: 2014-11-19)
Personalized Medicine and Imaging Applications of ImmunoPET : Using 124 I-Anti-PSCA A 11 Minibody for Imaging Disease Progression and Response to Therapy in Mouse Xenograft Models of Prostate Cancer

Purpose: Prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) is highly expressed in local prostate cancers and prostate cancer bone metastases and its expression correlates with androgen receptor activation and a poor prognosis. In this study, we investigate the potential clinical applications of immunoPET with the antiPSCA A11 minibody, an antibody fragment optimized for use as an imaging agent. We compare A11 minibody immunoPET to F-Fluoride PET bone scans for detecting prostate cancer bone tumors and evaluate the ability of the A11 minibody to image tumor response to androgen deprivation. Experimental Design: Osteoblastic, PSCA-expressing, LAPC-9 intratibial xenografts were imaged with serial I-anti-PSCA A11 minibody immunoPET and F-Fluoride bone scans. Mice bearing LAPC-9 subcutaneous xenografts were treated with either vehicle or MDV-3100 and imaged with A11 minibody immunoPET/CT scans preand posttreatment. Ex vivo flow cytometry measured the change in PSCA expression in response to androgen deprivation. Results: A11 minibody demonstrated improved sensitivity and specificity over F-Fluoride bone scans for detecting LAPC-9 intratibial xenografts at all time points. LAPC-9 subcutaneous xenografts showed downregulationofPSCAwhen treatedwithMDV-3100whichA11minibody immunoPETwas able todetect
Bisphosphonate Use and Risk of Implant Revision after Total Hip/Knee Arthroplasty: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

Objective Several studies investigated the association between bisphosphonate use and the risk of implant revision after total hip or knee arthroplasty (THA or TKA); However, the findings were inconsistent. We performed this meta-analysis to evaluate the overall relative risk of such an event. Methods We searched the PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane library databases to identify relevant publications on April 22, 2015. To calculate the pooled risk ratios (RRs) with 95% confidential intervals (CIs), a fixed- or random-effects model was applied based on the heterogeneity across studies. Results Three cohort studies and one case-control study were included in this meta-analysis. Compared with the bisphosphonate nonusers, the patients who used bisphosphonates for a long period of time had a significantly decreased risk of implant revision after THA/TKA (summary adjusted RR = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.38–0.61), and the summary adjusted RRs for the users who underwent THA and those who underwent TKA were 0.47 (95% CI: 0.36–0.61) and 0.45 (95% CI: 0.21–0.95), respectively. Conclusions Long-term use of bisphosphonates is correlated with a significantly decreased risk of implant revision after THA/TKA. However, due to limited number of the included studies, the findings of the present study should be treated with caution. More well-designed studies are required to further confirm our findings.
Thrombosis and haemorrhage in polycythaemia vera and essential thrombocythaemia

Despite decades of clinical and laboratory research, relatively little has been accomplished concerning the pathogenesis as well as the identification of risk factors for thrombosis and bleeding in myeloproliferative disorders. In polycythaemia vera, the pro‐thrombotic effect of an elevated haematocrit is well established. In contrast, thrombocytosis per se has not been similarly incriminated in essential thrombocythaemia. In both conditions, advanced age and the presence of a prior event identify thrombosis‐prone patients. There is increasing evidence to suggest an additional role by leucocytes that might partly explain the antithrombotic effects of myelosuppressive therapy. A substantial minority of affected patients display reduced levels of high molecular weight von Willebrand protein in the plasma during extreme thrombocytosis and it is believed that this might explain the bleeding diathesis of such patients. Recent controlled studies support the therapeutic value of hydroxyurea and aspirin in essential thrombocythaemia and polycythaemia vera, respectively. The current communication will address the incidence, phenotype, pathogenesis, risk factors, prevention, and treatment of both thrombosis and haemorrhage in these disorders.
Sex-Specific Association between Serum Uric Acid and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Across-sectional study was performed in 541 type 2 diabetic patients to determine the relationship between serum uric acid (SUA) and NAFLD in type 2 diabetic patients. Clinical parameters including SUA were determined and NAFLD was diagnosed by ultrasonography. SUA was significantly higher in type 2 diabetic subjects with NAFLD than in those without NAFLD in men, but not in women. Furthermore, the prevalence rate of NAFLD increased progressively across the sex-specific SUA tertiles only in men (37.9%, 58.6%, and 72.6%, resp., P for trend < 0.001). After adjusting for confounding factors, the odd ratios (95% CI) for NAFLD were 1 (reference), 2.93 (95%CI 1.25–6.88), and 3.93 (95% CI 1.55–9.98), respectively, across the tertiles of SUA in men. Contrastingly, SUA levels in women were not independently associated with the risk of NAFLD. Our data suggests that SUA is specifically associated with NAFLD in male type 2 diabetic subjects, independent of insulin resistance and other metabolic factors.