Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A nonrandom association of gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) and desmoid tumor (deep fibromatosis): case series of 28 patients.

BACKGROUND Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) and desmoid tumors (DTs) are two rare mesenchymal tumor. Anecdotal reports of individuals with both diseases led us to make the hypothesis that the association is a nonrandom event as the probability would be extremely low to observe such cases if they were independent events. PATIENTS AND METHODS We evaluated the existence of patients with GIST and DT in a large multicenter cohort at 10 institutions in the United States, Australia and Europe. Data on gender, age at diagnosis, KIT, PDGFRA, CTNNB1 mutation status and follow-up time after diagnosis were collected. RESULTS We identified 28 patients diagnosed with both tumors. DT was diagnosed after GIST in 75% of patients and concomitantly in 21%. In only one case (4%), GIST was diagnosed after DT. KIT or PDGFRA mutations were detected in 12 of 14 GIST, 9 in KIT exon 11, 2 in KIT exon 9 and 1 in PDGFRA. CONCLUSION A statistical analysis of these 28 cases suggests a nonrandom association between GIST and DT. Further studies may be able to elucidate the underlying biology responsible for this association.
Principled Disambiguation: Discriminating Adjective Senses with Modified Nouns

Recent corpus-based work on word sense disambiguation explores the application of statistical pattern recognition procedures to lexical co-occurrence data from very large text databases. In this paper we argue for a linguistically principled approach to disambiguation, in which relevant contextual clues are narrowly defined, in syntactic and semantic terms, and in which only highly reliable clues are exploited. Statistical methods play a definite role in this work, helping to organize and analyze data, but the disambiguation method itself does not employ statistical data or decision criteria. This approach results in improved understanding of the disambiguation problem both in general and on a word-specific basis and leads to broadly applicable and nearly errorless clues to word sense. The approach is illustrated by an experiment discriminating among the senses of adjectives, which have been relatively neglected in work on sense disambiguation. In particular, the paper assesses the potential of nouns for discriminating among the senses of adjectives that modify them. This assessment is based on an empirical study of five of the most frequent ambiguous adjectives in English: hard, light, old, right, and short. About three-quarters of all instances of these adjectives can be disambiguated almost errorlessly by the nouns they modify or by the syntactic constructions in which they occur. Such disambiguation requires only simple rules, which can be automated easily. Furthermore, a small number of semantic attributes supply a compact means of representing the noun clues in a very few rules. Clues other than nouns are required when modified nouns are not useable. The sense of an ambiguous modified noun may be needed to determine the relevant semantic attribute for disambiguation of a target adjective; and other adjectives, verbs, and grammatical constructions all show evidence of high reliability, and sometimes of high applicability, when they stand in specific, well-defined syntactic relations to the ambiguous adjective. Some of these clues, however, may be hard to automate.
Enhanced NMF initialization using a physical model for pollution source apportionment

In a previous work, we proposed an informed Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) with a specific parametrization which involves constraints about some known components of the factorization. In this paper we extend the above work by adding some information provided by a physical dispersion model. In particular, we derive a special structure of one of the factorizing matrices, which provides a better initialization of the NMF procedure. Experiments on simulated mixtures of particulate matter sources show that our new approach outperforms both our previous one and the state-of-the-art NMF methods.
Challenges and Opportunities in Multichannel Customer Management

Multichannel customer management is the design, deployment, coordination, and evaluation of channels through which firms and customers interact, with the goal of enhancing customer value through effective customer acquisition, retention, and development. The authors identify five major challenges practitioners must address to manage the multichannel environment more effectively: (a) data integration, (b) understanding consumer behavior, (c) channel evaluation, (d) allocation of resources across channels, and (e) coordination of channel strategies. The authors also propose a framework that shows the linkages among these challenges and provides a means to conceptualize the field of multichannel customer management. A review of academic research reveals that this field has experienced significant research growth, but the growth has not been distributed evenly across the five major challenges. The authors discuss what has been learned to date and identify emerging generalizations as appropriate. They conclude with a summary of where the research-generated knowledge base stands on several issues pertaining to the five challenges.
Um Sistema Multiagente no Auxílio à Formação de Grupos de Aprendizagem Colaborativa

This paper proposes a multi-agent system to aid in the formation of collaborative learning groups. Collaboration leads to positive results when group members build knowledge together, acquire skills, resolve conflicts and articulate with each others interpersonal skills. Group formation without carefully chosen criteria often causes problems such as the disproportional distribution of individuals as well as lack of motivation and growing resistance towards group work. The proposed technological model was designed using Prometheus methodology and JaCaMo framework. The obtained experimental results are promising, especially regarding the formation of higher performance groups in collaborative learning contexts.
Grasp Planning for Interactive Object Manipulation

Nowadays, one important research area of robotics is the design of machines with capabilities to interact with humans or other robots. Service robots fall in this category of machines and they need a set of functions to accomplish their tasks. Future autonomous robots must be capable to work and take decisions in an automatic way. Such a system must be capable to handle most common objects in a dynamic human environment. The first problem to solve in every manipulation task is how to grasp the object under certain constraints. This paper presents a planner to grasp unknown arbitrary objects for interactive manipulation tasks. Keywords—Grasp planning, object manipulation, object decomposition, interactive grasps.
Pretreatment of Lignocellulosic Wastes to Improve Ethanol and Biogas Production: A Review

Lignocelluloses are often a major or sometimes the sole components of different waste streams from various industries, forestry, agriculture and municipalities. Hydrolysis of these materials is the first step for either digestion to biogas (methane) or fermentation to ethanol. However, enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocelluloses with no pretreatment is usually not so effective because of high stability of the materials to enzymatic or bacterial attacks. The present work is dedicated to reviewing the methods that have been studied for pretreatment of lignocellulosic wastes for conversion to ethanol or biogas. Effective parameters in pretreatment of lignocelluloses, such as crystallinity, accessible surface area, and protection by lignin and hemicellulose are described first. Then, several pretreatment methods are discussed and their effects on improvement in ethanol and/or biogas production are described. They include milling, irradiation, microwave, steam explosion, ammonia fiber explosion (AFEX), supercritical CO2 and its explosion, alkaline hydrolysis, liquid hot-water pretreatment, organosolv processes, wet oxidation, ozonolysis, dilute-and concentrated-acid hydrolyses, and biological pretreatments.
Boeing Employees' Credit Union: leveraging the data warehousing investment

The Boeing Employee Credit Union (BECU) has been providing financial assistance to employees since 1935. By 1938, membership had grown to 850 members. During the 1990s, BECU grew from 150,000 members with 362,000 accounts to 260,000 members with 1,170,174 accounts. BECU is the largest financial cooperative in Washington State and the third largest credit union in the USA. Without significant investments in information technology, however, it would be impossible for BECU to deliver personalized services to its members. The idea of creating a member-centric information systems capability was first expressed in May 1999. Today, the data warehouse has resulted in many benefits, including plans to leverage the $2 million investment by providing three distinct types of service: (1) checking, savings, loans, individual retirement arrangements and certificate-of-deposit data; (2) mortgage and credit data; and (3) financial services data. This case study details these three types of service, the impact of each service on BECU's performance and the future directions and lessons learned from the project.
Serum IL-6, albumin and co-morbidities are closely correlated with symptoms of depression in patients on maintenance haemodialysis.

BACKGROUND Depression may be associated with activation of pro-inflammatory cytokines and increased long-term mortality in patients on maintenance haemodialysis (MHD). There are numerous reports regarding the association of depression with inflammatory status, co-morbidities and nutritional condition, but few of these studies have explored the possible correlations between depression, age and economic status. The study explores the possible correlations between depression and demographic, socio-economic, clinical and laboratory variables. METHODS One hundred and forty-six MHD patients (65 males and 81 females, mean age: 63.8±15.2 years) were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Demographic and socio-economic status as well as clinical and laboratory variables including co-morbidities were obtained. The self-administered Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used to determine the presence or absence of depression symptoms. Biochemical parameters (serum albumin, triglyceride, cholesterol, etc.) and dialysis dosage delivery (Kt/V and urea reduction rate or URR) were examined. All the patients were on high-flux biocompatible dialysers for MHD. The presence of an inflammatory state was assessed by determinations of plasma interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels. RESULTS The prevalence of depression (BDI≥14) was 45.9%. In patients found to have symptoms of depression, no statistically significant difference was shown with respect to age, gender, smoking habits or clinical characteristics. However, these patients were more likely to have a number of co-morbidities. They also had higher levels of serum IL-6 and total cholesterol as well as lower serum albumin and Kt/V values. The BDI correlated significantly with Kt/V values (r=-0.19; P<0.05), levels of serum albumin (r=-0.28; P<0.005) and serum IL-6 (r=0.47; P<0.001). Multivariate stepwise forward logistic regression analysis showed a direct correlation between BDI and IL-6 levels (P=0.001; OR=1.537) and between BDI and co-morbidities (P=0.037; OR=3.584). There was an inverse correlation between BDI and serum albumin levels (P=0.006; OR=0.145) and between BDI and age (P=0.007; OR=0.96). The rate of depression was significantly lower for the elderly patients (age≥75 years) compared with those below 64 years of age. The percentage of personal monthly disposable income at or above Taiwan dollar (TWD)>10,000 was similar in patients aged≥75 and those below 64 years old. CONCLUSIONS Maintenance haemodialysis patients with symptoms of depression may have higher serum IL-6 and lower serum albumin levels. The prevalence of depression was lower in elderly patients at or above 75 years old, and no correlation was found with socio-economic status. Factors including co-morbid conditions, serum IL-6, albumin and age may help predict which patients may be predisposed to develop symptoms of depression.
Recursive identification of FIR systems with binary-valued observations

This paper investigates the identification of the finite impulse response (FIR) systems with binary-valued observations. Combining with the stochastic gradient algorithm and statistical property of the system noise, a recursive projection algorithm is proposed to estimate the unknown parameters. Under some mild conditions on the a priori knowledge of the unknown parameters and inputs, the algorithm is proved to be convergent in the almost sure and mean square sense. Furthermore, the almost sure and mean square convergence rates of estimation errors are also obtained, and the schemes of selecting the quantization value are provided to ensure such rates. A numerical example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm and the main results obtained.
Surgical Decompression of Painful Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy: The Role of Pain Distribution

Objective To investigate the effect of surgical decompression on painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) patients and discuss the role which pain distribution and characterization play in the management of painful DPN as well as the underlying mechanism involved. Methods A total of 306 patients with painful diabetic lower-extremity neuropathy were treated with Dellon surgical nerve decompression in our department. Clinical evaluation including Visual analogue scale (VAS), Brief Pain Inventory Short Form for diabetic peripheral neuropathy (BPI-DPN) questionnaire, two-point discrimination (2-PD), nerve conduction velocity (NCV) and high-resolution ultrasonography (cross-sectional area, CSA) were performed in all cases preoperatively, and at 6 month intervals for 2 years post-decompression. The patients who underwent surgery were retrospectively assigned into two subgroups (focal and diffuse pain) according to the distribution of the diabetic neuropathic pain. The control group included 92 painful DPN patients without surgery. Results The levels of VAS, scores in BPI-DPN, 2-PD, NCV results and CSA were all improved in surgical group when compared to the control group (P<0.05). More improvement of VAS, scores in BPI-DPN and CSA was observed in focal pain group than that in diffuse group (P<0.05). Conclusions Efficacy of decompression of multiple lower-extremity peripheral nerves in patients with painful diabetic neuropathy was confirmed in this study. While both focal and diffuse group could benefit from surgical decompression, pain relief and morphological restoration could be better achieved in focal group.
The origins of the developmental origins theory

Current orthodoxy states that coronary heart disease results from the unhealthy lifestyles of westernized adults together with a contribution from genetic inheritance. This does not provide a secure basis for prevention of the disease. Geographical studies gave the first clue that the disease originates during intra‐uterine development. Variations in mortality from the disease across England and Wales were shown to correlate closely with past differences in death rates among newborn babies. In the past most deaths among newborns were attributed to low birthweight. This led to the hypothesis that undernutrition in utero permanently changes the body's structure, function and metabolism in ways that lead to coronary heart disease in later life. The association between low birthweight and coronary heart disease has been confirmed in longitudinal studies of men and women around the world. The developmental model of the origins of the disease offers a new way forward.
Chern characters via connections up to homotopy

The aim of this note is to point out that Chern characters can be computed using curvatures of \connections up to homotopy", and to present an application to the vanishing theorem for Lie algebroids. Classically, Chern characters are computed with the help of a connection and its curvature. However, one often has to relax the notion of connection so that one gains more freedom in representing these characteristic classes by dierential forms. A well known example is Quillen's notion of super-connection [8]. Here we remark that one can weaken the notion of (super-)connections even further, to what we call \up to homotopy". Our interest on this type of connections comes from the theory of characteristic classes of algebroids [2, 5] (hence, in particular of Poisson manifolds [6]). From our point of view, the intrinsic characteristic classes are secondary classes which arise from a vanishing result: the Chern classes of the adjoint representation vanish (compare to Bott's approach tochar- acteristic classes for foliations). We have sketched a proof of this in [2] for a particular class of algebroids (the so called regular ones). The problem is that the adjoint representation is a representation up to homotopy only [4]. For the general setting, we have to show that Chern classes can be computed using connections up to homotopy. Sincewe believe that this result might be of larger interest, we have chosen to present it atthelevel vector bundles over manifolds. In [3] we will describe the secondary characteristic classes which arise in the at case.
The real effect of the recent financial crisis on the UK housing price indicators

The recent financial crisis has caused unprecedented decline in house prices across the globe, particularly in the UK. Most economic fundamentals have been affected by the credit shortage and failure of many mortgage holders to meet their principal and interest payments. It became apparent that the post Keynesian credit model embraced by many scholars could not sustain the downturn occurred within the mortgage market. This study aims to examine exclusively the correlation between the major economic fundamentals and house price changes both before and during the financial crisis. A multiple regression analysis will be used to test the relationship between a set of selected independent variables and house prices. This would enable us to identify the directions and extent of the relationship. The results show that most indicators, including interest rates and earnings, behave analogously in the pre- and during the financial crisis. However, the directions of relationship for some of the parameters have changed when the market is in crisis, especially in the case of loans extended to house purchase and consumer price index.
An Experiment on the Influence of Haptic Communication on the Sense of Being Together

The experiment concerns a scenario where two or more people are at remote sites, but must co-operate to perform a joint task or play a game in a shared VE. In the current experiment, the set-up is an abstraction from a real situation, in order to simplify the interactions that occur in real life and to create a more controlled context suitable for an experimental study in the laboratory. We focus mainly on the impact of haptic display on the perceived quality of the interaction itself.
Multipitch estimation using a PLCA-based model: Impact of partial user annotation

In this paper one investigates the merit of partial user annotation for music transcription using a PLCA-based model. The original algorithm, called Blind Harmonic Adaptive Decomposition (BHAD), provides an estimation of the polyphonic pitch content of the input signal in an entirely unsupervised manner. In this paper, one studies how the performance of the BHAD algorithm can be further improved by involving a user by means of a partial annotation. This user input allows for a better model initialisation with adapted or learned spectral envelope models. Furthermore, it is studied how a fine control of the convergence rate of some parameters can better exploit this additional information. It is then shown that this partial annotation can bring an improvement of up to 3% on the transcription of the remaining file.
Role of Transfer in Discourse: From the Perspectives of Politeness and Coherence

There has been a lot of controversy in deciding whether language transfer takes place at the level of discourse. Most of the authors refute the concept of 'discourse transfer' but there are few undeniably important researchers whose observations and beliefs are contradictory. This paper intends to give a brief idea of the concept of discourse, its analysis and finally support the notion in light of some significant researches that discourse transfer does takes place in second language acquisition, be it positive or negative. This paper also intends to emphasize on two areas of discourse, politeness and coherence, which affect what has been called 'presentation of self'. Any misinterpretation during the comprehension and production due to cross-linguistic differences in discourse in these two particular areas may mistakenly convince the learner that the native speaker is being rude in situations where they are actually behaving appropriately according to their speech community norms. Also, since much of the research on contrastive discourse in the past deals with politeness or coherence, this paper aims to concentrate on these two areas.
CRF-Matching: Conditional Random Fields for Feature-Based Scan Matching

Matching laser range scans observed at different points in time is a crucial component of many robotics tasks, including mobile robot localization and mapping. While existing techniques such as the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm perform well under many circumstances, they often fail when the initial estimate of the offset between scans is highly uncertain. This paper presents a novel approach to 2D laser scan matching. CRF-Matching generates a Condition Random Field (CRF) to reason about the joint association between the measurements of the two scans. The approach is able to consider arbitrary shape and appearance features in order to match laser scans. The model parameters are learned from labeled training data. Inference is performed efficiently using loopy belief propagation. Experiments using data collected by a car navigating through urban environments show that CRF-Matching is able to reliably and efficiently match laser scans even when no a priori knowledge about their offset is given. They additionally demonstrate that our approach can seamlessly integrate camera information, thereby further improving performance.
Current Perspectives in Social Theory Emerald Book Chapter: Politics Disembodied and Deterritorialized: The Internet as Human Rights Resource

Purpose – The main objective of the chapter is to map out some of the most significant possible political consequences of the Internet for the state, citizenship, human rights, and other areas. Design/methodology/approach – The chapter analyzes the phenomena at the level of sociological theory. Its theoretical scope extends to political theory. Findings – The Internet offers immense potential toward improving the nation state in terms of human rights yet in a manner that may well be foiled by several cultural, political, and economic factors. By transforming national boundaries into nongeographic borders that operate transnationally and subnationally, and by abstracting from the cybernaut’s physical body, the Internet may challenge prevailing notions of state, private property, bodily autonomy, and political personhood, all of which connect discrete bodies with bounded territories. It might free citizenship rights Theorizing Modern Society as a Dynamic Process Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Volume 30, 209–233 Copyright r 2012 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0278-1204/doi:10.1108/S0278-1204(2012)0000030012