Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gastrectomy and D2 Lymphadenectomy for Gastric Cancer: A Meta-Analysis Comparing the Harmonic Scalpel to Conventional Techniques

The ultrasonic Harmonic scalpel has demonstrated clinical and surgical benefits in dissection and coagulation. To evaluate its use in gastrectomy, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials comparing the Harmonic scalpel to conventional techniques in gastrectomy for patients with gastric cancer. International databases were searched without language restrictions for comparisons in open or laparoscopic gastrectomy and lymphadenectomy. The meta-analysis used a random-effects model for all outcomes; continuous variables were analyzed for mean differences and dichotomous variables were analyzed for risk ratios. Sensitivity analyses were conducted for study quality, type of conventional technique, and imputation of study results. Ten studies (N = 935) met the inclusion criteria. Compared with conventional hemostatic techniques, the Harmonic scalpel demonstrated significant reductions in operating time (−27.5 min; P < 0.001), intraoperative blood loss (−93.2 mL; P < 0.001), and drainage volume (−138.8 mL; P < 0.001). Results were numerically higher for conventional techniques for hospital length of stay, complication risk, and transfusions but did not reach statistical significance. Results remained robust to sensitivity analyses. This meta-analysis demonstrates the clear advantages of using the Harmonic scalpel compared to conventional techniques, with improvements demonstrated across several outcome measures for patients undergoing gastrectomy and lymphadenectomy.
Systematic biological prioritization after a genome-wide association study: an application to nicotine dependence

MOTIVATION A challenging problem after a genome-wide association study (GWAS) is to balance the statistical evidence of genotype-phenotype correlation with a priori evidence of biological relevance. RESULTS We introduce a method for systematically prioritizing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for further study after a GWAS. The method combines evidence across multiple domains including statistical evidence of genotype-phenotype correlation, known pathways in the pathologic development of disease, SNP/gene functional properties, comparative genomics, prior evidence of genetic linkage, and linkage disequilibrium. We apply this method to a GWAS of nicotine dependence, and use simulated data to test it on several commercial SNP microarrays. AVAILABILITY A comprehensive database of biological prioritization scores for all known SNPs is available at http://zork.wustl. edu/gin. This can be used to prioritize nicotine dependence association studies through a straightforward mathematical formula-no special software is necessary. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Reinforcement Learning in Finite MDPs : PAC Analysis Reinforcement Learning in Finite MDPs : PAC Analysis

We study the problem of learning near-optimal behavior in finite Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with a polynomial number of samples. These “PAC-MDP” algorithms include the well-known E and R-MAX algorithms as well as the more recent Delayed Q-learning algorithm. We summarize the current state-of-the-art by presenting bounds for the problem in a unified theoretical framework. We also present a more refined analysis that yields insight into the differences between the model-free Delayed Q-learning and the model-based R-MAX. Finally, we conclude with open problems.
Stability of marginally outer trapped surfaces and existence of marginally outer trapped tubes

The present work extends our short communication L. Andersson, M. Mars and W. Simon, Local existence of dynamical and trapping horizons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 (2005), 111102. For smooth marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTS) in a smooth spacetime, we define stability with respect to variations along arbitrary vectors v normal to the MOTS. After giving some introductory material about linear nonself-adjoint elliptic operators, we introduce the stability operator Lv and we characterize stable MOTS in terms of sign conditions on the principal eigenvalue of Lv. The main result shows that given a strictly stable MOTS S0 ⊂ Σ0 in a spacetime with a reference foliation Σt, there is an open marginally outer trapped tube (MOTT), adapted to the reference foliation, which contains S0. We give conditions under which the MOTT can be completed. Finally, we show that under standard energy conditions on the spacetime, the MOTT must be either locally achronal, spacelike or null.
Finding direction of oscillation propagation using non-parametric transfer entropy method

Disturbances in process plants may usually widely propagate because of the interconnection in process equipment. It is necessary to get the correct source of loop oscillations. The application of transfer entropy method has now been proved effective. These existing methods need too much process knowledge and the results are affected by different parameters. In this work, spectral independent component analysis (Spectral ICA) are used to select the oscillatory process loop variables and reduce the number of variables which need to be analyzed by transfer entropy method, then a normalized transfer entropy method with non-parametric is used to isolate the root-cause of plant-wide and identify the propagation paths. The successful application of the methods has been demonstrated through two cases.
Verbal and nonverbal neuropsychological test performance in subjects with schizotypal personality disorder.

OBJECTIVE The authors contrasted verbal and nonverbal measures of attention and memory in patients with DSM-IV-defined schizotypal personality disorder in order to expand on their previous findings of verbal learning deficits in these patients and to understand better the neuropsychological profile of schizotypal personality disorder. METHOD Cognitive test performance was examined in 16 right-handed men who met diagnostic criteria for schizotypal personality disorder and 16 matched male comparison subjects. Neuropsychological measures included verbal and nonverbal tests of persistence, supraspan learning, and short- and long-term memory retention. Neuropsychological profiles were constructed by standardizing test scores based on the means and standard deviations of the comparison subject group. RESULTS Subjects with schizotypal personality disorder showed a mild to moderate general reduction in performance on all measures. Verbal measures of persistence, short-term retention, and learning were more severely impaired than their nonverbal analogs. Performance on measures of memory retention was independent of modality. CONCLUSIONS The results are consistent with previous reports that have suggested a mild, general decrement in cognitive performance and proportionately greater involvement of the left hemisphere in patients with schizotypal personality disorder. The findings provide further support for a specific deficit in the early processing stages of verbal learning.
Hvad er gode forudsætninger for at undervise i mindfulness?

Mindfulness-based clinical interventions have become popular and broadly implemented within several university clinics and hospitals. The efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is supported by evidence from numerous clinical trials and meta-analyses. However, with the increase inpopularity and greater demand, the central risk is that the quality and integrity of MBSR and MBCT could be lost, in particular if these evidence-based interventions are not delivered as intended. In this article, an overall model of quality and integrity is presented with an emphasis on professional training, standards of good practice, teaching competencies,ethics, and insights of contemplative traditions. It is suggested that professional training requires a longer time frame in order to develop, integrate, implement, and evaluate the basic competencies needed to effectively teach MBSR and MBCT. It is also argued that teachers of MBSR and MBCT need to be engage in the personal work ofintegrating mindfulness into their own lives.
Some Experimental Difficulties in the Use of V TM , as a Measure o C The report

The report by Kishida, Surawicz, and Fu entitled "Effects of K and K-Induced Polarization on (dV/ dt)m«x, Threshold Potential, and Membrane Input Resistance in Guinea Pig and Cat Ventricular Myocardium" (1979) is a careful study of the effects of changes in [K]o on ventricular muscle. Nevertheless, the separation of the effects of K on Vm^ into a membrane potential-dependent component and a component independent of the membrane potential (and presumably dependent on a specific action of K on the Na channel) is premature. To achieve such a separation, all sources of possible error must be carefully quantified. I would like to discuss two of them: (1) variation in step potential, both across the sucrose gap node and between "identical" voltage steps in solutions of different values of [K]o, and (2) the effects of differences in the instantaneous I-V relationships in solutions of different [K]os.
An evaluation of cultivated corneal limbal epithelial cells, using cell-suspension culture.

PURPOSE A previous report has described an ocular surface reconstruction method involving the use of cultivated corneal epithelium derived from limbal explants. In the current study, a new culture system was developed involving the in vitro propagation on amniotic membrane (AM) of epithelial cells from enzymatically dissociated limbal epithelium. The purpose of this new method is to produce a cultivated epithelial cell layer that contains stem cells and that is superior to explanted cultivated epithelium. The new cell-suspension technique was compared with the existing explant method. METHODS Limbal epithelial cells were dissociated from donor eyes by dispase and seeded on the denuded AM. Small pieces of limbal epithelium were also cultured on denuded AM as explant cultures. The cultivated epithelium was examined by electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry for cornea-specific keratins (K3 and K12). RESULTS Both cell-suspension and explant culture methods produced a healthy epithelial cell layer. The cell-suspension culture had significantly (P < 0.001) more desmosomal junctions between the explant-cultured basal cells. In addition, the intercellular spaces between the cell-suspension's basal cells were significantly (P < 0.001) smaller than those between the explant-cultured basal cells. Both types of cultivated epithelium showed positive expression of K3 and K12 keratins. In the cell-suspension culture, expression of K3 and K12 keratins was more prominent in the superficial cells. CONCLUSIONS Corneal epithelial cells were successfully regenerated in vitro by a cell-suspension culture system. The suspension-cultured epithelium must include some stem cells and morphologically is significantly superior to explant-cultured epithelium. Thus, this new technique is potentially more suitable for cultivated corneal limbal epithelial transplantation.
GSM System - Handover∗

This is a first outline of the case study Handover according to AGILE’s workplan. It attempts to model the specification of the core of the handover protocol for the GSM system for mobile systems in Mobile CommUnity. Mobile CommUnity, described in [3] is an extension of CommUnity in order to support location-dependent patterns of computing, namely distributed and mobile components.
The Digital Quest for Love – The Role of Relationship Status in Self-Presentation on Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites (SNS) offer various opportunities for communicating personal information, thus providing an ideal setting for getting in contact with other users. This study investigated whether a person’s relationship status presented on his/her online profile is related to virtual self-presentation on the German Web 2.0 site StudiVZ. Considering the social psychological concept of the “need to belong” (Baumeister & Leary, 1995), we assumed that users who are searching for a relationship make use of certain self-presentational strategies, for example by creating a more detailed profile and placing high priority on the display of a large network of social bonds. An analysis of 100 online profiles showed that singles disclosed more photographs of themselves on their profiles than people in relationships. The highest numbers of friends and wall postings were shown by people who did not reveal their relationship status. Singles displayed more groups on their profile and were more likely to join user groups dealing with parties, sexual statements as well as fun and nonsense. Results therefore indicate that – although SNS are not especially dedicated to dating behavior – self-presentation is nevertheless affected by the potential to form romantic relationships. Therefore, relationship status is suggested as a further factor which affects online impression management, besides, for example, socio-demographic aspects, personality traits and culture.
The characters of Palaeozoic jawed vertebrates

Newly discovered fossils from the Silurian and Devonian periods are beginning to challenge embedded perceptions about the origin and early diversification of jawed vertebrates (gnathostomes). Nevertheless, an explicit cladistic framework for the relationships of these fossils relative to the principal crown lineages of the jawed vertebrates (osteichthyans: bony fishes and tetrapods; chondrichthyans: sharks, batoids, and chimaeras) remains elusive. We critically review the systematics and character distributions of early gnathostomes and provide a clearly stated hierarchy of synapomorphies covering the jaw-bearing stem gnathostomes and osteichthyan and chondrichthyan stem groups. We show that character lists, designed to support the monophyly of putative groups, tend to overstate their strength and lack cladistic corroboration. By contrast, synapomorphic hierarchies are more open to refutation and must explicitly confront conflicting evidence. Our proposed synapomorphy scheme is used to evaluate the status of the problematic fossil groups Acanthodii and Placodermi, and suggest profitable avenues for future research. We interpret placoderms as a paraphyletic array of stem-group gnathostomes, and suggest what we regard as two equally plausible placements of acanthodians: exclusively on the chondrichthyan stem, or distributed on both the chondrichthyan and osteichthyan stems.
Noisy low-rank matrix completion with general sampling distribution

In the present paper we consider the problem of matrix completion with noise for general sampling schemes. Unlike previous works, in our construction we do not need to know or to evaluate the sampling distribution or the variance of the noise. We propose new nuclear-norm penalized estimators, one of them of the "square-root" type. We prove that, up to a logarithmic factor, our estimators achieve optimal rates with respect to the estimation error
Teachers researching singing: contexts, conundrums, and contributions

ABSTRACT This paper considers the value and purpose of music teachers engaging in classroom research. This is placed in the context of current interest in evidence-based practice, the unstable place of music in the English school curriculum, and in particular the teaching of singing. While singing and its pedagogy and place in the music educational order have attracted the attention of researchers for the past 100 years, there is little known about the ways in which teachers seek to better understand and improve their teaching of singing. We examine the research of four teachers in the early stages of their professional development, and identify five ways in which the teacher-as-researcher may be understood: as a scholar; as a critical voice; as a creator of a specific conception of validity; as an agent of change; and as an extended professional.
Is desire for social relationships mediated by the serotonergic system in the prefrontal cortex? An [18F]setoperone PET study

Social behavior and desire for social relationships have been independently linked to the serotonergic system, the prefrontal cortex, especially the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The goal of this study was to explore the role of serotonin 5HT2A receptors in these brain regions in forming and maintaining close interpersonal relationships. Twenty-four healthy subjects completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) prior to undergoing [18F]setoperone brain positron emission tomography (PET) to measure serotonin 5HT2A receptor availability within the OFC (BA 11 and 47) and ACC (BA 32). We explored the relationship between desire for social relationships, as measured by the TCI reward dependence (RD) scale, and 5HT2A receptor non-displaceable binding potential (BPnd) in these regions. Scores of RD were negatively correlated with 5HT2A BPnd in the ACC (BA 32, r = –.528, p = .012) and OFC (BA 11, r = –.489, p = .021; BA 47, r = –.501, p = .017). These correlations were corroborated by a voxel-wise analysis. These results suggest that the serotonergic system may have a regulatory effect on the OFC and ACC for establishing and maintaining social relationships.
Characterisation of Hypertensive Patients with Improved Endothelial Function after Dark Chocolate Consumption

Recent findings indicate an inverse relationship between cardiovascular disease and consumption of flavonoids. We aimed to identify clinical and vascular parameters of treated hypertensive who present beneficial effects of dark chocolate for one-week period on vascular function. Twenty-one hypertensive subjects, aged 40–65 years, were included in a prospective study with measurement of blood pressure (BP), brachial flow-mediated dilatation (FMD), peripheral arterial tonometry, and central hemodynamic parameters. These tests were repeated after seven days of eating dark chocolate 75 g/day. Patients were divided according to the response in FMD: responders (n = 12) and nonresponders (n = 9). The responder group presented lower age (54 ± 7 versus 61 ± 6 years, P = 0.037), Framingham risk score (FRS) (2.5 ± 1.8 versus 8.1 ± 5.1%, P = 0.017), values of peripheral (55 ± 9 versus 63 ± 5 mmHg, P = 0.041), and central pulse pressure (PP) (44 ± 10 versus 54 ± 6 mmHg, P = 0.021). FMD response showed negative correlation with FRS (r = −0.60, P = 0.014), baseline FMD (r = −0.54, P = 0.011), baseline reactive hyperemia index (RHI; r = −0.56, P = 0.008), and central PP (r = −0.43, P = 0.05). However, after linear regression analysis, only FRS and baseline RHI were associated with FMD response. In conclusion, one-week dark chocolate intake significantly improved endothelial function and reduced BP in younger hypertensive with impaired endothelial function in spite of lower cardiovascular risk.
Bmc Medical Informatics and Decision Making Instant Availability of Patient Records, but Diminished Availability of Patient Information: a Multi-method Study of Gp's Use of Electronic Patient Records

Background: In spite of succesful adoption of electronic patient records (EPR) by Norwegian GPs, what constitutes the actual benefits and effects of the use of EPRs in the perspective of the GPs and patients has not been fully characterized. We wanted to study primary care physicians' use of electronic patient record (EPR) systems in terms of use of different EPR functions and the time spent on using the records, as well as the potential effects of EPR systems on the clinician-patient relationship.
An Adaptive Algorithm of Universal Learning Network for Time Delay System

This paper presents a new adaptive algorithm of universal learning network (ULN) and its application to identify time delay of nonlinear black-box plant model. The ULN, a superset of many kinds of neural networks, consists of two kinds of elements: nodes and branches corresponding to equations and their relations in traditional description of dynamic system. Following the idea of ULN, the time delay parameters on the branches of ULN can be re-parameterized by the adaptive algorithm, based on the character in simulations of time delay system identifications and state stability analysis. One of distinctive features of the adaptive algorithm is that it can identify the pure time delay of the object model during identifications. The applicability and effectiveness of the adaptive algorithm are proved by simulation results. The general architecture and adaptive algorithm give ULN more representing abilities to model and control the nonlinear black box systems with time delay
BlueTrack - Imperceptible Tracking of Bluetooth Devices

Bluetooth enabled devices are potentially vulnerable against passive tracking attacks because of their unique and invariant device address. The contribution of this paper is the exploration of tracking vulnerability of Bluetooth devices. We implemented BlueTrack, a tracking system based on off-the-shelf components. We tested our system at two sites, at a university building with several lecture rooms and at a CeBIT 2004 exhibition stand. The results show that astonishingly many Bluetooth devices can be detected and personalized traces can be recorded.
Transistor Implementation Of Reversible Gate Using Novel 3 Transistor EXOR Gate

The design of VLSI systems with less power dissipation has become an area of intense research interest. The development for the design of such a low power systems undoubtedly requires the efficient designing methodology. Reversible Logics are one of the alternatives for removing the power dissipation problem in the VLSI systems at logical level implementation. In this regard, at the physical or circuit level transistor count is one of the important optimization issue in the VLSI design. This paper proposes an effective CMOS design of the main reversible logic gates of the reversible programmable logic array for the low power industrial application with less transistor count as explained in the literature. EX-OR is the main functionality of the reversible gates and in this paper the authors also shows the effective design of the EX-OR functionality by using 3 transistors.
A Lightweight Application-Layer Signaling Protocol

The session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a widely used application-layer control protocol. The processing load of the SIP protocol is reportedly seen as one of the potential problems which may limit the range of its application although it has a number of advantages. Many research efforts have been made and have come up with various compression algorithms to reduce the packet size in order not to waste scarce bandwidth especially for wireless access networks. However, they increase the processing load at the same time. We propose a lightweight application-layer signaling protocol (lightweight-SIP) which reduces network bandwidth without sacrificing CPU performance by introducing a gateway which translates SIP into the proposed protocol. The gateway works as a cache for static and lengthy header fields of SIP messages. We expect the proposed protocol to be used by low-spec devices such as sensor nodes, less-expensive surveillance cameras and wearable computers so that it could reduce the energy consumption and lengthening the battery life or loosen requirements for the hardware specs.