Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional Imaging Using Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Response in Women with Locally Advanced Breast Cancer

Purpose: Functional imaging with tomographic near-infrared diffuse optical spectroscopy (DOS) can measure tissue concentration of deoxyhemoglobin (Hb), oxyhemoglobin (HbO2), percent water (%water), and scattering power (SP). In this study, we evaluated tumor DOS parameters and described their relationship to clinical and pathologic outcome in patients undergoing neoadjuvant therapy for locally advanced breast cancer. Experimental Design: Ten patients were enrolled and intended to undergo five scans each. Scans were taken up to 3 days before treatment and at 1, 4, and 8 weeks after neoadjuvant treatment before surgery. Changes in volume of interest weighted tissue Hb, HbO2, %water, and SP corresponding to the tumor were compared with clinical and pathologic response. Results: All patients' tumor volumes of interest were significantly different compared with background tissue for all parameters. Five patients had a good pathologic response. Four patients were considered nonresponders. One patient initially did not respond to chemotherapy but, after a change in chemotherapy, had a good response. In the five patients with a good response, the mean drop in Hb, HbO2, %water, and SP from baseline to the 4-week scan was 67.6% (SD = 20.8), 58.9% (SD = 20.3), 51.2% (SD = 28.3), and 52.6% (SD = 26.4), respectively. In contrast, the four nonresponders had a mean drop of 17.7% (SD = 9.8), 18.0% (SD = 20.8), 15.4% (SD = 11.7), and 12.6% (SD = 10.2) for Hb, HbO2, %water, and SP, respectively. Conclusions: Responders and nonresponders were significantly different for all functional parameters at the 4-week scan, except for %water, which approached significance. Thus, DOS could be used as an early detector of tumor response. Clin Cancer Res; 16(9); 2605–14. ©2010 AACR.
Grammatical Category Disambiguation by Statistical Optimization

Several algorithms have been developed in the past that attempt to resolve categorial ambiguities in natural language text without recourse to syntactic or semantic level information. An innovative method (called "CLAWS") was recently developed by those working with the Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus of British English. This algorithm uses a systematic calculation based upon the probabilities of co-occurrence of particular tags. Its accuracy is high, but it is very slow, and it has been manually augmented in a number of ways. The effects upon accuracy of this manual augmentation are not individually known.The current paper presents an algorithm for disambiguation that is similar to CLAWS but that operates in linear rather than in exponential time and space, and which minimizes the unsystematic augments. Tests of the algorithm using the million words of the Brown Standard Corpus of English are reported; the overall accuracy is 96%. This algorithm can provide a fast and accurate front end to any parsing or natural language processing system for English.
Protracted Synaptogenesis after Activity-Dependent Spinogenesis in Hippocampal Neurons

Activity-dependent morphological plasticity of neurons is central to understanding how the synaptic network of the CNS becomes reconfigured in response to experience. In recent years, several studies have shown that synaptic activation that leads to the induction of long-term potentiation also drives the growth of new dendritic spines, raising the possibility that new synapses are made. We examine this directly by correlating time-lapse two-photon microscopy of newly formed spines on CA1 pyramidal neurons in organotypic hippocampal slices with electron microscopy. Our results show that, whereas spines that are only a few hours old rarely form synapses, older spines, ranging from 15 to 19 h, consistently have ultrastructural hallmarks typical of synapses. This is in agreement with a recent in vivo study that showed that, after a few days, new spines consistently form functional synapses. In addition, our study provides a much more detailed understanding of the first few hours after activity-dependent spinogenesis. Within tens of minutes, physical contacts are formed with existing presynaptic boutons, which slowly, over the course of many hours, mature into new synapses.
Ribbon networks for modeling navigable paths of autonomous agents in virtual environments

This paper presents the environment description framework (EOF) for modeling complex networks of intersecting roads and pathways in virtual environments. EOF represents information about the layout of streets and sidewalks, the rules that govern behavior on roads and walkways, and the locations of agents with respect to navigable structures. The framework serves as the substrate on which behavior programs for autonomous vehicles and pedestrians are built. Pathways are modeled as ribbons in space. The ribbon structure provides a natural coordinate frame for defining the local geometry of navigable surfaces. EOF includes a powerful runtime interface supported by robust and efficient code for locating objects on the ribbon network, for mapping between Cartesian and ribbon coordinates, and for determining behavioral constraints imposed by the environment
Alcohol Price Policies as an Instrument of Health Equity: Differential Effects of Tax and Minimum Price Measures.

Increasing the price of alcohol has been shown to reduce alcohol-related harm (Babor et al. , 2010). Thus the price of alcohol is a relevant consideration in improving the health of the population. Existing regulatory strategies to manipulate price include changing tax rates or specific price controls such as minimum unit pricing (MUP). The effects of these strategies on overall consumption are significant (Stockwell et al. , 2012; Holmes et al. , 2014), as well as their effects on consumption by sub-groups such as people on low incomes. Indeed, modelling in the UK using the so-called ‘Sheffield’ model (Brennan et al. , 2014) suggests that the introduction of MUP would impact most on the consumption of low-income harmful drinkers (Holmes et al. , 2014). Leaving aside issues of fiscal equity, in terms of hitting the pockets of poor drinkers harder, the modelling predicted two beneficial effects of MUP on the reductions of purchasing by this group of drinkers: it would result in overall decreased spending on alcohol and produce better health outcomes as a by-product of the reductions in purchasing and consumption. Although much of the recent discussion surrounding price policies has been focused on MUP, the broader question is how price changes resulting from any strategy differentially impact on different drinkers, be they grouped by socioeconomic status, drinker category or by the beverage that they choose to drink. Such differential effects on poorer and richer drinkers are often the subject of public policy debates, but usually the emphasis is on the regressivity of the price measures, meaning that alcohol price increases tend to absorb a greater proportion of the income of poorer drinkers than of more affluent …
Research on Synergy Process & Mechanism of Technology Innovation in Industrial Clusters

Promoting synergy creation of technology in industrial cluster is the key of advancing innovation ability and technology level. The technology innovation of industrial cluster is synergy innovation process, according to the analysis for activities of innovation. And the paper explains the synergy process of cluster innovation activities. The process includes: technological decision and concept combination, technology development of combination involving production, teaching and research, popularization of technology and upgrade of innovation. Finally, the paper analyses the function of communication, choice, study and search for the process of synergy innovation.
Orthodontic implications of protein undernutrition in mandibular growth. A cephalometric study in growing rats.

The present experimental work analyzes the development of different mandibular units and its likely impact on the direction of mandibular displacement during facial development, and the relation between the mesiodistal dimension of the first, second, and third molars and the length of the mandibular corpus in a model of protein undernutrition with muscular atrophy in growing rats. Sixteen Wistar rats weaned at the age of 21 days were assigned to one of the following groups: control (fed a regular hard diet ad libitum) and experimental (fed a diet lacking in protein, corn flour, ad libitum). All the animals were euthanized five weeks after the onset of the experiment. Following resection of the mandibles, the mandibles were hemisected at the symphysis and fixed in 10% formalin. Remaining soft tissue was removed. Metallic landmarks were placed in the mental and mandibular foramens of one hemimandible of each rat. The hemimandibles were radiographed. The cephalometric study was performed on paper tracings of the projected image of the radiographs. Both groups exhibited a slight increase in body weight (b.w) throughout the first ten days of the experiment. After this point, the undernourished group showed no further increase in b.w. , and exhibited significantly lower b.w. than controls at the end of the experiment. The cephalometric study showed that the length of the mandible as a whole, and of the condylar and angular processes was significantly lower in the undernourished group. In addition, significant differences in the vertical relation between the angular process to the mandibular corpus, the convexity of the angular process, and the ratio between total molar width (from the first to the third molar) and the length of the mandibular corpus were observed.
Potential Proinvasive or Metastatic Effects of Preclinical Antiangiogenic Therapy Are Prevented by Concurrent Chemotherapy

Purpose: To resolve a controversy involving the therapeutic impact of antiangiogenic drugs and particularly antibodies targeting the VEGF pathway, namely, a body of preclinical mouse therapy studies showing such drugs can promote invasion and/or distant metastasis when used as monotherapies. In contrast, clinical studies have not shown such promalignancy effects. However, most such clinical studies have involved patients also treated with concurrent chemotherapy highlighting the possibility that chemotherapy may prevent any potential promalignancy effect caused by an antiangiogenic drug treatment. Experimental Design: The impact of antiangiogenic therapy using DC101, an antibody targeting mouse VEGFR-2 with or without concurrent chemotherapy was assessed in multiple human breast cancer xenograft models, where impact on orthotopic primary tumors was evaluated. Metastasis was also assessed during adjuvant and neoadjuvant plus adjuvant therapy, after surgical resection of primary tumors, with the same combination therapies. Results: Antiangiogenic therapy, while blunting tumor volume growth, was found to increase local invasion in multiple primary tumor models, including a patient-derived xenograft, but this effect was blocked by concurrent chemotherapy. Similarly, the combination of paclitaxel with DC101 caused a marked reduction of micro- or macrometastatic disease in contrast to DC101 monotherapy, which was associated with small increases in metastatic disease. Conclusions: Conventional wisdom is that targeted biologic antiangiogenic agents such as bevacizumab when used with chemotherapy increase the efficacy of the chemotherapy treatment. Our results suggest the reverse may be true as well—chemotherapy may improve the impact of antiangiogenic drug treatment and, as a result, overall efficacy. Clin Cancer Res; 21(24); 5488–98. ©2015 AACR.
Compressive Failure Behaviour of Novel Aramid Fibres

Since the development of the first truly synthetic fibres in the late nineteenth century, scientific efforts have lead to large variety of fibres ranging from fibres for textile applications to high performance fibres used as engineering materials. Examples of high performance fibres that are often used in engineering applications are aramid, glass and carbon fibres. Based on specific tensile properties polymer fibres such as aramids outperform glass and carbon fibres, but a major concern is, however, their behaviour under compressive loading. The work presented in this thesis describes a novel approach to increase the compressive strength of aramid (or PPTA) fibres and to characterise the compressive failure behaviour of these new fibres in more detail. The new concept is based on the addition of PPTA-compatible oligomers containing reactive end-groups. These newly designed oligomers can be considered to act as a molecular ‘glue’ to locally increase lateral cohesion and hence to increase the compressive properties without reducing the axial tensile properties.
Antimicrobial Resistance in Commensal Flora of Pig Farmers

We assessed the quantitative contribution of pig farming to antimicrobial resistance in the commensal flora of pig farmers by comparing 113 healthy pig farmers from the major French porcine production areas to 113 nonfarmers, each matched for sex, age, and county of residence. All reported that they had not taken antiimicrobial agents within the previous month. Throat, nasal, and fecal swabs were screened for resistant microorganisms on agar containing selected antimicrobial agents. Nasopharyngeal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus was significantly more frequent in pig farmers, as was macrolide resistance of S. aureus from carriers. Nongroupable streptococci from the throat were more resistant to the penicillins in pig farmers. The intestinal isolation of enterococci resistant to erythromycin or vancomycin was not significantly higher in pig farmers in contrast to that of enterobacteria resistant to nalidixic acid, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, and streptomycin. Prevalence of resistance in predominant fecal enterobacteria was also significantly higher in pig farmers for cotrimoxazole, tetracycline, streptomycin, and nalidixic acid. We determined a significant association between pig farming and isolation of resistant commensal bacteria.
Sex Differences in Incidence, Mortality, and Survival in Individuals With Stroke in Scotland, 1986 to 2005

Background and Purpose— The aim of this study was to examine the effect of sex across different age groups and over time for stroke incidence, 30-day case-fatality, and mortality. Methods— All first hospitalizations for stroke in Scotland (1986 to 2005) were identified using linked morbidity and mortality data. Age-specific rate ratios (RRs) for comparing women with men for both incidence and mortality were modeled with adjustment for study year and socioeconomic deprivation. Logistic regression was used to model 30-day case-fatality. Results— Women had a lower incidence of first hospitalization than men and size of effect varied with age (55 to 64 years, RR=0.65, 95% CI 0.63 to 0.66; ≥85 years, RR=0.94, 95% CI 0.91 to 0.96). Women aged 55 to 84 years had lower mortality than men and again size of effect varied with age (65 to 74 years, RR=0.79, 95% CI 0.76 to 0.81); 75 to 84 years, RR=0.94, 95% CI 0.92 to 0.95). Conversely, women aged ≥85 years had 15% higher stroke mortality than men (RR=1.15, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.18). Adjusted risk of death within 30 days was significantly higher in women than men, and this difference increased over the 20-year period in all age groups (adjusted OR in 55 to 64 year olds 1.23, 95% CI 1.14 to 1.33 in 1986 and 1.51, 95% CI 1.39 to 1.63 in 2005). Conclusions— We observed lower rates of incidence and mortality in younger women than men. However, higher numbers of older women in the population mean that the absolute burden of stroke is greater in women. Short-term case-fatality is greater in women of all ages and, worryingly, these differences have increased from 1986 to 2005.
Proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans induce gap junction synthesis and function in primary liver cultures

Intercellular communication via gap junctions, as measured by dye and electrical coupling, disappears within 12 h in primary rat hepatocytes cultured in serum-supplemented media or within 24 h in cells in a serum- free, hormonally defined medium (HDM) designed for hepatocytes. Glucagon and linoleic acid/BSA were the primary factors in the HDM responsible for the extended life span of the electrical coupling. After 24 h of culture, no hormone or growth factor tested could restore the expression of gap junctions. After 4-5 d of culture, the incidence of coupling was undetectable in a serum-supplemented medium and was only 4-5% in HDM alone. However, treatment with glycosaminoglycans or proteoglycans of 24-h cultures, having no detectable gap junction protein, resulted in synthesis of gap junction protein and of reexpression of electrical and dye coupling within 48 h. Most glycosaminoglycans were inactive (heparan sulfates, chondroitin-6 sulfates) or only weakly active (dermatan sulfates, chondroitin 4- sulfates, hyaluronates), the weakly active group increasing the incidence of coupling to 10-30% with the addition of 50-100 micrograms/ml of the factor. Treatment of the cells with 50-100 micrograms/ml of heparins derived from lung or intestine resulted in cells with intermediate levels of coupling (30-50%). By contrast, 10-20 micrograms/ml of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan, dermatan sulfate proteoglycan, or liver-derived heparin resulted in dye coupling in 80- 100% of the cells, with numerous cells showing dye spread from a single injected cell. Sulfated polysaccharides of glucose (dextran sulfates) or of galactose (carrageenans) were inactive or only weakly active except for lambda-carrageenan, which induced up to 70% coupling (albeit no multiple coupling in the cultures). The abundance of mRNA (Northern blots) encoding gap junction protein and the amounts of the 27-kD gap junction polypeptide (Western blots) correlated with the degree of electrical and dye coupling indicating that the active glycosaminoglycans and proteoglycans are inducing synthesis and expression of gap junctions. Thus, proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans, especially those found in abundance in the extracellular matrix of liver cells, are important in the regulation of expression of gap junctions and, thereby, in the regulation of intercellular communication in the liver. The relative potencies of heparins from different tissue sources at inducing gap junction expression are suggestive of functional tissue specificity for these glycosaminoglycans.
Plasma Heme Oxygenase-1 Concentration in Relation to Impaired Glucose Regulation in a Non-Diabetic Chinese Population

Background Our previous study has recently shown that plasma heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), a stress-responsive protein, is elevated in individuals with type 2 diabetes. The current study aimed to examine the association between plasma HO-1 concentration and impaired glucose regulation (IGR) in non-diabetic individuals. Methods We conducted a case-control study including a total of 865 subjects (262 IGR individuals and 603 healthy controls) in a Chinese population. Basic characteristics were collected by questionnaire and standardized anthropometric measurements. Plasma HO-1 concentration was determined by ELISA. Results Plasma HO-1 concentration was significantly increased in IGR individuals compared with healthy controls (1.34 (0.81–2.29) ng/ml vs 0.98 (0.56–1.55) ng/ml, P<0.001). After adjustment for age, sex, and BMI, the ORs for IGR in the highest quartile of plasma HO-1 concentrations, compared with the lowest, was 3.42 (95% CI 2.11–5.54; P for trend <0.001). The trend remained significant even after additional adjustment for smoking, alcohol drinking, hypertension, family history of diabetes, lipid profiles and C-reactive protein. In the receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis, addition of plasma HO-1 concentration to a model with known risk factors yielded significantly improved discriminative value for IGR (area under the curves 0.75 (95% CI 0.71–0.78) vs. 0.72 (95% CI 0.69–0.76); P for difference = 0.026). Conclusions Elevated plasma HO-1 concentration is significantly associated with increased ORs for IGR. However, its clinical utility should be validated in further studies, especially in prospective cohort studies.
Synthesizing a Usable Global Time from Multiple Independent Clocks

To analyze and predict the behavior of multicomputer applications as a function of several communications performance parameters, a global time was synthesized from multiple independent clocks. Each node of the test platform maintains local time with sixty-four bit precision and one-hundred nanosecond granularity, but there is no direct means of determining a global time. After more elaborate techniques for calculating a usable global time fail, a simple method, based on rst principles, succeeds.
Channel estimation for wireless OFDM communication systems

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) has become a very popular method for high data rate wireless communications because of its advantages over single carrier modulation schemes on multi-path, frequency selective fading channels. However, inter-carrier interference due to Doppler frequency shifts, and multi-path fading severely degrades the performance of OFDM systems. Estimation of channel parameters is required at the receiver. In this paper, we present a channel modeling and estimation method based on time-frequency representation of the received signal. The Discrete Evolutionary Transform provides a time-frequency procedure to obtain a complete characterization of the multi-path, fading and frequency selective channel. Performance of the proposed method is tested on different levels of channel noise, Doppler frequency shifts, and jamming interference powers.
SOIL STABILIZATION WITH CEMENT AND LIME

This book reviews the subject of soil stabilization which is the process whereby soils and related materials are made stronger and more durable by mixing with a stabilizing agent. The process enables materials to be employed in the construction of road pavements which without stabilization would be unsuitable for use. The use of stabilized soils in place of natural aggregates can have considerable environmental and economic advantages. Although other stabilizing agents can be used, cement and lime are by far the most important and the book therefore concentrates on their use. The book begins with an outline of the principles of stabilization followed by a review of the methods of testing and the specifications in use in different parts of the world. The physical and chemical factors affecting the strength of stabilized soils are dealt with in depth, and then the book goes on to describe the practical aspects of the technology including the design process, construction techniques, quality control procedures, and problem areas. In the final chapter the environmental and economic benefits of the techniques are reviewed and summarized.