Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Clinicopathological Features of BRAF Mutated Papillary Thyroid Cancers in Chinese Patients

The BRAFV600E mutation is commonly found in papillary thyroid cancers (PTCs) at different frequencies in different regions. However, the association between the BRAFV600E mutation and clinicopathological features in Chinese PTC patients is unknown. A total of 543 Chinese patients with histologically confirmed PTC were enrolled in this study. For the BRAF mutation assay, the target fragments were amplified and sequenced with an ABI 3500 gene analyzer. In 170 of 543 samples (31.3%), the BRAFV600E mutation was detected. In the bivariate analysis, the BRAFV600E mutation showed an association with bilaterality, tumor size, extrathyroidal invasion, and lymph node metastases (LNM). However, in the multivariate analysis, the BRAFV600E mutation was positively related to only tumor size (>1 cm) and extrathyroidal invasion. In addition, the multivariate analysis also showed that the age at diagnosis (<45 y) and tumor size (>1 cm) were independent predictors for LNM. In this study, the BRAFV600E mutation is positively associated with worse prognostic factors, including larger tumor size and the tumor extending to the thyroid capsule or extrathyroidal region; however, it is not an independent predictor for LNM.
Association between Perceived Neighborhood Environment and Walking among Adults in 4 Cities in Japan

Background Recent research highlights the importance of environment as a determinant of physical activity; however, evidence among Japanese is sparse. The aim of this study was to examine the association between perceived neighborhood environment and neighborhood walking for multiple purposes among Japanese. Methods We conducted a population-based, cross-sectional study of 1461 Japanese adults (age: 48.2 ± 14.1 years, men: 44.8%). Neighborhood environment and walking were assessed by a validated questionnaire. The odds ratio of active walkers was calculated in relation to environmental characteristics after adjustment for age, sex, and other potential confounders. Results Participants were more likely to walk when they perceived that there was high residential density (odds ratio, 1.47; 95% confidence interval, 1.11–1.96), fair land use mix–diversity (1.37, 1.04–1.81), good walking/cycling facilities (1.56, 1.19–2.04), and attractive aesthetics (1.49, 1.14–1.95). Environmental factors associated with walking differed with respect to the purpose for walking. The environmental characteristics associated with walking for daily errands and with walking for commuting were similar, and included residential density and land use mix. Walking for leisure was associated with walking/cycling facilities, aesthetics, and traffic safety. Stratified analyses showed some sex-specific associations. Among women, there was an unexpected inverse association of leisure walking with both residential density and land use mix–diversity. Conclusions The association between neighborhood environment and walking differed by walking purpose. The results were generally consistent with those of studies conducted in Western countries, except for the association of high residential density and good land use mix–diversity with less leisure walking in women. These results suggest possible targets for environmental interventions to promote walking.
Classes of Nodes with Different Power Amplifiers and their Influence in Wireless Multi-hop Networks

Optimizing wireless network operations can be achieved by transmission power control of wireless nodes, which is mostly performed by regulating the final power amplifier. Depending on the desired transmission power level, currently popular amplifiers work at different levels of efficiency: highest in case of maximum output power, lower in case of reduced output power. As the power amplifier is the major power sink in most common network interfaces, operating at high efficiency is desirable. Ideally, a node would operate using a power amplifier which is tuned to provide its highest efficiency at the node? s (single or typically used) transmission power level. Our idea is to use specialization of nodes to allow for efficient short-range communication using (mostly) ? short-range? specialists ? nodes where the power amplifier is optimized for low output power values ? and to use the corresponding ? long-range specialists? for the long-distance communication in one network. However, the node deployment strategy should stay the same and all nodes have to be able to provide all power levels, albeit at different costs. We discuss the implementation and performance characteristics of such heterogenous networks in this paper. The results show a potential reduction in energy consumption to less than 65 % compared to classical networks with uniform amplifiers. We characterize the optimum ratio of nonheterogenous nodes for a given network density with different types of node distributions and show how missing the optimum ratio will impact the energy consumption of the network.
The Arterial Baroreflex Resets with Orthostasis

The arterial baroreflexes, located in the carotid sinus and along the arch of the aorta, are essential for the rapid short term autonomic regulation of blood pressure. In the past, they were believed to be inactivated during exercise because blood pressure, heart rate, and sympathetic activity were radically changed from their resting functional relationships with blood pressure. However, it was discovered that all relationships between carotid sinus pressure and either HR or sympathetic vasoconstriction maintained their curvilinear sigmoidal shape but were reset or shifted so as to best defend BP during exercise. To determine whether resetting also occurs during orthostasis, we examined the arterial baroreflexes measured supine and upright tilt. We studied the relationships between systolic BP and HR (the cardiovagal baroreflex), mean BP, and ventilation (the ventilatory baroreflex) and diastolic BP and sympathetic nerve activity (the sympathetic baroreflex). We accomplished these measurements by using the modified Oxford method in which BP was rapidly varied with bolus injections of sodium nitroprusside followed 1 min later by bolus injections of phenylephrine. Both the cardiovagal and ventilatory baroreflexes were “reset” with no change in gain or response range. In contrast, the sympathetic baroreflex was augmented as well as shifted causing an increase in peripheral resistance that improved the subjects’ defense against hypotension. This contrasts with findings during exercise in which peripheral resistance in active skeletal muscle is not increased. This difference is likely selective for exercising muscle and may represent the actions of functional sympatholysis by which exercise metabolites interfere with adrenergic vasoconstriction.
ANGIOSPERMS ARE UNIQUE AMONGST LAND PLANT LINEAGES IN THE OCCURRENCE OF KEY GENES IN THE RNA DEPENDENT DNA METHYLATION ( RDDM ) PATHWAY

The RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway (RdDM) can be divided into three phases: (i) small interfering RNA biogenesis, (ii) de novo methylation and (iii) chromatin modification. To determine the degree of conservation of this pathway we searched for key genes amongst land plants. We used OrthoMCL and the OrthoMCL Viridiplantae database to analyse proteomes of species in bryophytes, lycophytes, monilophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms. We also analysed small RNA size categories and, in two gymnosperms, cytosine methylation in ribosomal DNA. Six proteins were restricted to angiosperms, these being NRPD4/NRPE4, RDM1, DMS3, SHH1, KTF1 and SUVR2, although we failed to find the latter three proteins in Fritillaria persica, a species with a giant genome. Small RNAs of 24 nucleotides in length were abundant only in angiosperms. Phylogenetic analyses of Dicer-like (DCL) proteins showed that DCL2 was restricted to seed plants, although it was absent in Gnetum gnemon and Welwitschia mirabilis. The data suggest that phases (i) and (ii) of the RdDM pathway, described for model angiosperms, evolved with angiosperms. The absence of some features of RdDM in F. persica may be associated with its large genome. Phase (iii) is probably the most conserved part of the pathway across land plants. DCL2, involved in virus defence and interaction with the canonical RdDM pathway to facilitate methylation of CHH, is absent outside seed plants. Its absence in G. gnemon, and W. mirabilis coupled with distinctive patterns of CHH methylation, suggest a secondary loss of DCL2 following the divergence
Subcarrier Coupling and Scheduling for Multi-User OFDMA Relaying Networks

The performance of subcarrier coupling and its effects on different scheduling schemes in multi-user OFDMA relaying networks are investigated in this paper. The relay station adopts the amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying strategy and is allowed to couple an input subcarrier to another output subcarrier. We show that in a source-relay-destination model, subcarrier coupling can achieve substantial capacity gain only when the two hop links have similar channel qualities, and the achievable gain also depends on the slow-fading magnitude of either hop. In view of this, we employ a sub-optimal subcarrier coupling scheme with low complexity for the multi-user scenario. Simulation results demonstrate that the sub-optimal scheme achieve similar performance compared to the conventionally optimal scheme.
Survey on Pedestrian Detection, Classification and Tracking

— Detection of human beings with accuracy in visual surveillance systems is important for various application areas like remote and mobile monitoring, traffic monitoring, public safety and abnormal event detection. The first step in detection process is to detect the object which is in motion and further classify it and track the objects. The paper further directs towards the detection and tracking of humans, so called pedestrians and a comprehensive review on the available techniques for Pedestrians in surveillance videos is presented in this paper.
6 Bipolar Disorder and Suicide

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic psychiatric disorder characterized by remissions and exacerbations of mood disturbances. BD is associated with increased mortality due to the averse outcomes of medical disorders, accidents and complications of commonly comorbid substance use disorders /Ahrens et al., 1995/. By far, however, the major source of early mortality is a high risk of suicide /Kessler et al., 2005; Tondo et al., 2005/. Suicide behaviour and particularly, committed suicide are among the most tragic events in human life causing a serious changes among relatives and friends as well as imposing a great economic problem for the whole society /Rihmer & Kiss, 2004/. Approximately about one million deaths from suicide are recorded every year and a world-wide number of suicide attempts is estimated to be 10 – 15 millions per annum /Wassermann, 2000/. Reviewing 17 follow-up studies on committed suicide in patients with primary affective disorders, Guze & Robins /1970/ found that about 15% of formerly hospitalized depressed patients would die by suicide. Goodwin & Jamison /1990/ also concluded that 19% of depressed patients (mainly inpatients) died by suicide /Rihmer, 2006/. In their metaanalysis of studies on suicide risk in psychiatric disorders, Harris & Barraclough /1997/ analyzed separately the risk of suicide in unipolar major depression and in BD. They found that the risk of suicide was about 20-fold for patients with index diagnosis of unipolar major depression and the same figure for BD was 15. However, these three studies /Goodwin & Jamison, 1990; Guze & Robins, 1970; Harris & Barraclough, 1997/ cannot provide a precise estimation of separate suicide risk in unipolar and bipolar disorder, that is they overestimate the risk for unipolar depression and underestimate it for BD.
Rethinking Kyoto Compliance from a Consumption-Based Perspective.

Environmental consequences of international trade are quite relevant for climate change policy. Apparent decoupling of GHG emission and GDP growth, observed in several European countries, is partly due to the increasing dislocation of manufacturing industries from the developed world to emerging economies. Consequently, decoupling is coupled with increasing GHG emission embodied in imported products from these nations. The article scrutinises the GHG emission embedded in Hungarian import of Chinese products. It argues that a stagnating GHG emission observed in Hungary is intertwined with hidden GHG export to China that takes place through trading of goods. Objective evaluation of compliance status with Kyoto targets would require a consumption-based accounting of GHG emissions rather than a production-based one, unless we accept facing a BIG problem at global level.
Discovering Hierarchical Structure for Sources and Entities

In this paper, we consider the problem of jointly learning hierarchies over a set of sources and entities based on their containment relationship. We model the concept of hierarchy using a set of latent binary features and propose a generative model that assigns those latent features to sources and entities in order to maximize the probability of the observed containment. To avoid fixing the number of features beforehand, we consider a non-parametric approach based on the Indian Buffet Process. The hierarchies produced by our algorithm can be used for completing missing associations and discovering structural bindings in the data. Using simulated and real datasets we provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed approach in comparison to the existing hierarchy agnostic approaches.
Describing the Elephant: The Different Faces of IT as Service

In a well-known fable, a group of blind men are asked to describe an elephant. Each encounters a different part of the animal and, not surprisingly, provides a different description. We see a similar degree of confusion in the IT industry today, as terms such as service-oriented architecture, grid, utility computing, on-demand, adaptive enterprise, data center automation, and virtualization are bandied about. As when listening to the blind men, it can be difficult to know what reality lies behind the words, whether and how the different pieces fit together, and what we should be doing about the animal(s) that are being described. (Of course, in the case of the blind men, we did not also have marketing departments in the mix! )
The use of intra-operative fluoroscopy for tibial tunnel placement in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

Objectives Our aim was to assess the use of intra-operative fluoroscopy in the assessment of the position of the tibial tunnel during reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Methods Between January and June 2009 a total of 31 arthroscopic hamstring ACL reconstructions were performed. Intra-operative fluoroscopy was introduced (when available) to verify the position of the guidewire before tunnel reaming. It was only available for use in 20 cases, due to other demands on the radiology department. The tourniquet times were compared between the two groups and all cases where radiological images lead to re-positioning of the guide wire were recorded. The secondary outcome involved assessing the tibial interference screw position measured on post-operative radiographs and comparing with the known tunnel position as shown on intra-operative fluoroscopic images. Results Of the 20 patients treated with fluoroscopy, the imaging led to repositioning of the tibial guide wire before reaming in three (15%). The mean tourniquet time with intra-operative fluoroscopy was 56 minutes (44 to 70) compared with 51 minutes (42 to 67) for the operations performed without. Six patients (30%) had post-operative screw positions that were > 5% more posterior than the known position of the tibial tunnel. Conclusion Intra-operative fluoroscopy can be effectively used to improve the accuracy of tibial tunnel positions with minimal increase in tourniquet time. This study also demonstrates the potential inaccuracy associated with plain radiological assessment of tunnel position.
Using ultrasonic hand tracking to augment motion analysis based recognition of manipulative gestures

The paper demonstrates how ultrasonic hand tracking can be used to improve the performance of a wearable, accelerometer and gyroscope based activity recognition system. Specifically we target the recognition of manipulative gestures of the type found in assembly and maintenance tasks. We discuss how relevant information can be extracted from the ultrasonic signal despite problems with low sampling rate, occlusions and reflections that occur in this type of application. We then introduce several methods of fusing the ultrasound and motion sensor information. We evaluate our methods on an experimental data set that contains 21 different actions performed repeatedly by three different subjects during simulated bike repair. Due to the complexity of the recognition tasks with many similar and vaguely defined actions and person independent training both the ultrasound and motion sensors perform poorly on their own. However with our fusion methods recognition rates well over 90% can be achieved for most activities. In extreme case recognition rates go up from just over 50% for separate classifications to nearly 89% with our fusion methods.
Detection of Local Wall Stiffness Drop in Steel-Lined Pressure Tunnels and Shafts of Hydroelectric Power Plants Using Steep Pressure Wave Excitation and Wavelet Decomposition

A new monitoring approach for detecting, locating, and quantifying structurally weak reaches of steel-lined pressure tunnels and shafts is presented. These reaches arise from local deterioration of the backfill concrete and the rock mass surrounding the liner. The change of wave speed generated by the weakening of the radial-liner supports creates reflection boundaries for the incident pressure waves. The mon- itoring approach is based on the generation of transient pressurewith a steep wave front and the analysis of the reflected pressure signals using the fast Fourier transform and wavelet decomposition methods. Laboratory experiments have been carried out to validate the monitoring technique. The multilayer system (steel-concrete-rock) of the pressurized shafts and tunnels is modeled by a one-layer system of the test pipe. This latter was divided into several reaches having different wall stiffnesses. Different longitudinal placements of a steel, aluminum, and PVC pipe reach were tested to validate the identification method of the weak section. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0000478. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers. CE Database subject headings: Speed; Tunnels; Pipes; Wave reflection; Hydro power; Power plants; Wavelet; Monitoring; Excitation. Author keywords: Front wave speed; Steel-lined pressure tunnels; Pipes; Wave reflections; Transient pressure signals; Wavelet decomposition; Monitoring.
Surfers of the ocean waves: Change management, intersectoral migration and the economic development of small island states

Abstract: This paper argues that there is a need to better acknowledge and problematise themanner in which individuals,households,organisations and governments in small island jurisdictionsdevelop mechanisms that allow them to exploit the beneﬁts, and/or minimise the losses, of episodiceconomic lurches. A ‘strategic ﬂexibility’ approach is proposed to explain how actors practiseintersectoral migration: cleverly shifting focus, interest and scope, not just out of necessity (reac-tively) but in ‘smelling’ promising opportunities (proactively). In a scenario where change is taken asa given,managing and coping with such change become the hallmarks of economic survival:just likesurfers handling the ocean swell. Keywords: intersectoral migration , MIRAB PROFIT small islands states , strategic ﬂexibility , vulnerability Introduction: Scripted jurisdictions Smallislandstatescomeacrossasthosejuris-dictionsthataretheeasiesttoconceptualiseandscriptasweakandvulnerable;theirverysmallness, self-evident scale and presumedmanageabilitymakethemtemptingprojectstoessentialiseandclassify.Theirremoteness,theirsmallerpopulations,theopennatureoftheireconomies,theirpronenesstoenvironmentalmishaps,theirlimitedlandareaandresourcebases,theirlackofindustrialclout,thehighercostsinvolvedindoingbothprivatebusinessandgovernment.alltheseandotherfeaturescollectivelymakethemhighlysuitedtothedis-courseofvulnerability,ofastructuralincapacitytoorganisetheirownfuture(e.g.AlesinaandSpolaore,2003;WintersandMartins,2004). Suchadiscourse–soreadilyvisiblefromaquickliteraturescan,punctuatedasitisbyref-erences to ‘problems’, ‘dangers’, ‘dilemmas’andnotionsof‘paradiselost’–hasofcoursebecome more politically correct since theacceptanceof‘smallstates’and‘smallislanddevelopingstates’(SIDS)aslegitimatepolicycategories:theﬁrstbytheCommonwealthSec-retariat since 1985 and the second by theUnitedNationsandtheWorldBanksince1992(Harden,1985;EasterlyandKraay,2000:2013). Thistransitionhashappenedparalleltotherec-ognitionoftheenvironmentaldangersposedbyglobal warming and sea-level rise: note thesettingupoftheAllianceofSmallandIslandStates(nowwith42memberstates)in1991;andthestrongvisibilityachievedbytheSIDSlobbyinrecentclimatechangenegotiations. ‘Savingsmallislandstatesfromsinking’isacurrentandprobablythemosthighlyvisiblepolicyitemontheinternationalagendathatfeatures small island states today (e.g. Nath
Building video streaming platform for educational content delivery

This paper presents security extension of Videoserver platform for establishing secure media content delivery to authenticated users. Videoserver platform is based on Wowza server services with enhanced player with additional security features and supported by mobile application for Android based devices. Paper presents short technology overview and introduces partial solutions with its specifications. Key features is implementation of modified SecureToken and encrypted delivery to mobile devices. This could lead to new software extension available for public commercial use. Videoserver is popular platform created by students at Computer Networks Laboratory located at Technical University in Košice.
The Point of Care Measures of patients ’ experience in hospital : purpose , methods and uses

n The King's Fund Point of Care programme aims to transform the quality of patients' experience in acute hospitals. This is against the background of the Department of Health's current range of policies designed to improve patients' experience of health care in England. n Such an ambitious transformation requires the involvement of all frontline staff and will need first class leadership. n Key to the strategy is robust evidence on the quality of patients' experience, and that of their families. While there is a range of indicators derived from various sources, direct feedback from patients is likely to remain the core method for measuring patients' experience. n NHS trusts and commissioning bodies will need more detailed and more frequent forms of feedback if they are to meet the new requirements. n Ensuring that you are measuring the things that matter most to patients is an essential component of a successful strategy for improving patients' experience. It is important to choose methods that are fit for purpose. This paper provides a brief guide to these to help trust boards and other interested parties decide which measurement and feedback tools are appropriate for their requirements. n It is important to understand the difference between patient experience and patients' satisfaction, and to be clear about the distinction between patients' experience of the care process and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). n Technologies and methodologies will be marketed vigorously over the coming months, and boards and senior managers need to be aware of the merits and drawbacks of the various alternatives. n The starting point for measuring patients' experiences should be an agreed set of standards together with a set of measurable indicators. At the heart of this are patient-centred care and patients' priorities.