Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in children younger than five years of age for prevention of pneumonia

Objective. To determine the effectiveness of the Wyeth heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine against clinical and radiograph-confirmed pneumonia in children. Methods. The heptavalent CRM197 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) was given to infants at 2, 4, 6 and 12 to 15 months of age in a randomized, double blind trial. 1 Children were randomized to receive either the CRM197 PCV (vaccine group) or the meningococcal type C CRM197 conjugate vaccine (control group). The primary outcome of this trial was invasive pneumococcal disease. In addition children with the clinical diagnosis of pneumonia in the study population were identified through review of automated inpatient, emergency and outpatient databases. The subset of the cohort of these children who had chest radiographs obtained at the time of diagnosis was identified, and the original reading of their radiographs by the radiologist was obtained from automated databases. Rates of clinically diagnosed pneumonia, of pneumonia with a radiograph obtained regardless of result, of pneumonia with positive radiograph (consolidation, empyema or parenchymal infiltrate) and of pneumonia with only perihilar infiltrates were compared between vaccinated and nonvaccinated groups. In addition risk of disease pneumonia was evaluated by race and ethnicity. Results. The incidence of a first pneumonia episode in the control group was 55.9 per 1000 person-years. A radiograph was obtained in 61% of episodes, a positive radiograph in 21% and perihilar findings in an additional 5%. In per protocol follow-up of children given PCV, first episodes of all clinically diagnosed pneumonia were reduced by 4.3% [95% confidence interval (CI), −3.5, 11.5%, P = 0.27], episodes with a radiograph were reduced by 9.8% (CI 0.1, 18.5%, P < 0.05) and episodes with a positive radiograph were reduced by 20.5% (CI 4.4, 34.0, P = 0.02). In the intent to treat analysis including all episodes after randomization, episodes with a positive radiograph were reduced by 17.7%, P = . 01). The greatest impact was in the first year of life with a 32.2% reduction and a 23.4% reduction in the first 2 years, but only a 9.1% reduction in children >2 years of age. Asians, blacks and Hispanics were at higher risk of pneumonia than were whites, but there was no evidence of ethnic variation in PCV effectiveness. Ten of the 11 cases of pneumococcal pneumonia with a positive blood culture were in the control group. Conclusion. The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine tested was effective in reducing the risk of pneumonia in young children.
The Electroanatomic Mechanisms of Atrial Tachycardia in Patients with Tetralogy of Fallot and Double Outlet Right Ventricle

Atrial Tachycardia in Tetralogy of Fallot and DORV. Background: Atrial tachycardias (AT) are common after palliation or repair of congenital heart disease. The electroanatomic mechanism of AT in postoperative tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) and double outlet right ventricle (DORV) patients has not been fully explored.
An Algorithmic Approach to Total Breast Reconstruction with Free Tissue Transfer

As microvascular techniques continue to improve, perforator flap free tissue transfer is now the gold standard for autologous breast reconstruction. Various options are available for breast reconstruction with autologous tissue. These include the free transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous (TRAM) flap, deep inferior epigastric perforator flap, superficial inferior epigastric artery flap, superior gluteal artery perforator flap, and transverse/vertical upper gracilis flap. In addition, pedicled flaps can be very successful in the right hands and the right patient, such as the pedicled TRAM flap, latissimus dorsi flap, and thoracodorsal artery perforator. Each flap comes with its own advantages and disadvantages related to tissue properties and donor-site morbidity. Currently, the problem is how to determine the most appropriate flap for a particular patient among those potential candidates. Based on a thorough review of the literature and accumulated experiences in the author's institution, this article provides a logical approach to autologous breast reconstruction. The algorithms presented here can be helpful to customize breast reconstruction to individual patient needs.
Robust Fault Tolerant Rail Door State Monitoring Systems: Applying the Brooks-Iyengar Sensing Algorithm to Transportation Applications

In a moving train, the acceleration and deceleration adversely effects the sensor systems, which may induce errors into the system. Today’s technology does not guarantee success and safety in all situations. There are two important situations that are critical for the safety of passengers when embarking and disembarking. Distributed sensing networks needed to control the train doors require a fusion of the sensor inputs to provide accurate automatic opening and closing with minimum traction. Brooks-Iyengar Distributed Sensing algorithm can be used to provide a fault tolerant automatic sensing platform for closing doors based on the following scenario. An automatic sensor network can be installed in the motor circuit to collect current data through a wireless protocol. The data can be transmitted by cellular communication to servers, where the Brooks-Iyengar distributed sensing algorithm can be applied to identify and categorize the data signals to safely and automatically open and close the doors. This paper describes the performance evaluation of the signal output of Brooks-Iyengar algorithm in this application. Based upon the performance results, the Brooks-Iyengar Algorithm provides the best robust algorithm for implementation under faulty sensor conditions, such as those encountered in real-world transportation applications.
The Isolation and Typing of Coliphages Specific to Various Wild-Type Escherichia coli Strains and Phage-Resistant Mutants

Phage-resistant Escherichia coli mutants are typically achieved via the inoculation of infectious coliphages. The aim of this study was to assess the host-range of an assortment of coliphages with various strains of wild-type E. coli and to test the degree of sensitivity or resistance of the isolated mutants. For this purpose, coliphages were prepared from sewage influent and cultivated using six distinct strains of E. coli to observe for the formation of plaque. It was found that the addition of certain coliphages induced phage-resistant colonies of mutant E. coli within the plaque formed. Under further examination, mutant colonies were also resistant to the six coliphages tested. Coliphages ΦW3104 and ΦC possessed the widest host range as they were able to infect five out of the six strains of E. coli. It is possible that the phage-resistant mutants carry a deletion or mutation in a gene coding for bacteriophage receptor components. This study demonstrates that somatic coliphages are a promising tool for investigating mutagenesis in E. coli.
Social Transmission of Experience of Agency: An Experimental Study

The sense of controlling one’s own actions is fundamental to normal human mental function, and also underlies concepts of social responsibility for action. However, it remains unclear how the wider social context of human action influences sense of agency. Using a simple experimental design, we investigated, for the first time, how observing the action of another person or a robot could potentially influence one’s own sense of agency. We assessed how observing another’s action might change the perceived temporal relationship between one’s own voluntary actions and their outcomes, which has been proposed as an implicit measure of sense of agency. Working in pairs, participants chose between two action alternatives, one rewarded more frequently than the other, while watching a rotating clock hand. They judged, in separate blocks, either the time of their own action, or the time of a tone that followed the action. These were compared to baseline judgements of actions alone, or tones alone, to calculate the perceptual shift of action toward outcome and vice versa. Our design focused on how these two dependent variables, which jointly provide an implicit measure of sense of agency, might be influenced by observing another’s action. In the observational group, each participant could see the other’s actions. Multivariate analysis showed that the perceived time of action and tone shifted progressively toward the actual time of outcome with repeated experience of this social situation. No such progressive change occurred in other groups for whom a barrier hid participants’ actions from each other. However, a similar effect was observed in the group that viewed movements of a human-like robotic hand, rather than actions of another person. This finding suggests that observing the actions of others increases the salience of the external outcomes of action and this effect is not unique to observing human agents. Social contexts in which we see others controlling external events may play an important role in mentally representing the impact of our own actions on the external world.
Obesity, food intake and exercise: Relationship with ghrelin

Summary Obesity, a disorder of body composition, is defined by a relative or absolute excess of body fat. In general adult population, obesity has been associated with a diverse array of adverse health outcomes, including major causes of death such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, as well as functional impairment from problems such as osteoarthritis and sleep apnea. Ghrelin is a newly discovered peptide hormone which plays an important role in obesity. It is a powerful, endogenous orexigenic peptide and has a crucial function in appetite regulation, as well as short – and long-term energy homeostasis. In the presence of increased obesity, decreased physical activity, and high food consumption, the relationship between exercise, appetite, food intake and ghrelin levels has important implications. In this review, we discuss the effect of acute and chronic exercise performance on appetite, food intake and ghrelin and their relationships.
Using morphological description for generic sound retrieval

Systems for sound retrieval are usually “sourcecentred”. This means that retrieval is based on using the proper keywords that define or specify a sound source. Although this type of description is of great interest, it is very difficult to implement it into realistic automatic labelling systems because of the necessity of dealing with thousands of categories, hence with thousands of different sound models. Moreover, digitally synthesised or transformed sounds, which are frequently used in most of the contemporary popular music, have no identifiable sources. We propose a description framework, based on Schaeffer’s research on a generalised solfeggio which could be applied to any type of sounds. He defined some morphological description criteria, based on intrinsic perceptual qualities of sound, which doesn’t refer to the cause or the meaning of a sound. We describe more specifically experiments on automatic extraction of morphological descriptors.
Placement Strategies for Virtualized Network Functions in a NFaaS Cloud

Enterprises that host services in the cloud need to protect their cloud resources using network services such as firewalls and deep packet inspection systems. While middle boxes have typically been used to implement such network functions in traditional enterprise networks, their use in cloud environments by cloud tenants is problematic due to the boundary between cloud providers and cloud tenants. Instead we argue that network function virtualization is a natural fit in cloud environments, where the cloud provider can implement Network Functions as a Service using virtualized network functions running on cloud servers, and enterprise cloud tenants can employ theseservices to implement security and performance optimizations for their cloud resources. In this paper, we focus on placement issues in the design of a NFaaS cloud and present two placement strategies-tenant-centric and service-centric-for deploying virtualized network services in multi-tenant settings. We discuss several tradeoffs of these two strategies. We implement a prototype NFaaS testbed and conduct a series of experiments to quantify the benefits and drawbacks of our two strategies. Our results suggest that the tenant-centric placement provides lower latencies while service-centric approach is more flexible for reconfiguration and capacity scaling.
Die Infrarot-Reflexionsmethode zur Registrierung horizontaler Augenbewegungen

: Basically, the infrared reflection method for recording of horizontal eye movements has been conceived in the fifties already. The method has proved to be a valuable tool for recording of eye movements, particularly saccades. More recently there is increasing interest in recording of horizontal saccades for diagnostic purposes. Previous versions of this method, however, were not suitable for routine recordings. After several technical improvements the method now is ready for routine recordings of horizontal eye movements in the diagnosis of neurological and opthalmological disorders. In order to accentuate the strengths and weaknesses of the infrared reflection method, it is compared with DC-Electrooculography.
Expression and antigenicity of human herpesvirus 8 encoded ORF59 protein in AIDS‐associated Kaposi's sarcoma

Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV‐8, Kaposi's sarcoma‐associated herpesvirus, KSHV) is a new herpes virus isolated from patients with AIDS‐associated Kaposi's sarcoma (AIDS‐KS). The ORF59 protein of HHV‐8 has recently been shown to encode a processivity factor (PF‐8) for HHV‐8‐encoded DNA polymerase. By immunoscreening a cDNA library derived from the HHV‐8‐infected cell line TY‐1, ORF59 antigen was identified in AIDS‐KS patients. Immunoblotting revealed that recombinant ORF59 protein reacted with sera from patients with AIDS‐KS. Enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using ORF59‐recombinant protein as the antigen revealed that 7 of 22 (31.8%) AIDS‐KS patients and 6 of 263 (2.2%) Japanese HIV‐negative patients or healthy blood donors were positive for anti‐ORF59 antibodies. Immunohistochemistry using anti‐ORF59 rabbit antibodies revealed that this protein was expressed in some of the tumor cells found in KS tissues and that ORF59 protein was detected in 11 of 22 (50%) AIDS‐KS tissues. In situ hybridization indicated that some of KS tumor cells were positive for HHV‐8 T1.1 mRNA in the same specimen. These data suggest that ORF59 is one of the HHV‐8 encoded antigens in patients with AIDS‐KS and also indicated that viral replication occurred in some of KS tumor cells. J. Med. Virol. 59:346–355, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
METABOLISM OF PUTATIVE TRANSMITTERS IN INDIVIDUAL NEURONS OF APLYSIA CALIFORNICA

The activities of acetylcholinesterase (acetylcholine acetyl‐hydrolase; EC 3.1.1.7) and catechol‐O‐methyl transferase (S‐adenosylmethionine: catechol‐O‐methyl transferase; EC 2.1.1 .a) were measured in the various ganglia of the nervous system of Aplysia californica and in some of the individually identifiable neurons in these ganglia. All of the neurons studied had measurable levels of activity for both enzymes. Since different individual neurons exhibited approximately the same level of activity we concluded that neither of these enzymes could be used to classify neurons as ‘cholinergic’ vs. ‘aminergic’ or ‘cholinoceptive’ vs. ‘aminoceptive'. The ubiquitous distribution of either or both of these enzymes in different single neurons may be related to glial contamination.
Do Browser Cookies Really Affect Online Airline Ticket Prices

Many travel websites recommend that consumers clear their cookies before buying an airline ticket in order to get better prices. Today the idea that browser cookies might influence the price of an airline ticket is widespread.Charging different prices to different consumers for the same product where those differences in price do not reflect differences in cost is called price discrimination. Internet technology has made it possible for airlines to pricediscriminate between their consumers using browser cookies. But do they really charge different prices to consumers with cookies on their computers showing that they have already visited the website? Or is it an urbanmyth? The aim of this study is to find evidence on the domestic U.S. airline market. Prices were collected on 41 routes flown by three of the leading U.S. airlines: American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Air Lines. Results suggest that browser cookies do not affect online airline ticket prices.
Impact of difference in WBAN channel models on UWB system performance

In this paper, the performances of two singleband ultra wideband (UWB) systems, i.e., direct sequence UWB (DS-UWB) and UWB frequency modulation (UWB-FM) are studied in two different channel models to reveal an impact of a channel model on the system's performance. The applied channel models are the experimental wireless body area network (WBAN) channel model developed at the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), Finland, and the IEEE 802.15. 6 channel model. The simulation results indicate that the choice of the WBAN channel model applied in the simulations has a major impact on the performance of UWB-FM, whereas it is not such a crucial in the case of DS-UWB.
Authenticated Algorithms for Byzantine Agreement

Reaching agreement in a distributed system in the presence of faulty processors is a central issue for reliable computer systems. Using an authentication protocol, one can limit the undetected behavior of faulty processors to a simple failure to relay messages to all intended targets. In this paper we show that, in spite of such an ability to limit faulty behavior, and no matter what message types or protocols are allowed, reaching (Byzantine) agreement requires at least $t + 1$ phases or rounds of information exchange, where t is an upper bound on the number of faulty processors. We present algorithms for reaching agreement based on authentication that require a total number of messages sent by correctly operating processors that is polynomial in both t and the number of processors, n. The best algorithm uses only $t + 1$ phases and $O(nt)$ messages.
Computer-aided detection of breast cancers using Haar-like features in automated 3D breast ultrasound.

PURPOSE Automated 3D breast ultrasound (ABUS) has gained interest in breast imaging. Especially for screening women with dense breasts, ABUS appears to be beneficial. However, since the amount of data generated is large, the risk of oversight errors is substantial. Computer aided detection (CADe) may be used as a second reader to prevent oversight errors. When CADe is used in this fashion, it is essential that small cancers are detected, while the number of false positive findings should remain acceptable. In this work, the authors improve their previously developed CADe system in the initial candidate detection stage. METHODS The authors use a large number of 2D Haar-like features to differentiate lesion structures from false positives. Using a cascade of GentleBoost classifiers that combines these features, a likelihood score, highly specific for small cancers, can be efficiently computed. The likelihood scores are added to the previously developed voxel features to improve detection. RESULTS The method was tested in a dataset of 414 ABUS volumes with 211 cancers. Cancers had a mean size of 14.72 mm. Free-response receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed to evaluate the performance of the algorithm with and without using the aforementioned Haar-like feature likelihood scores. After the initial detection stage, the number of missed cancer was reduced by 18.8% after adding Haar-like feature likelihood scores. CONCLUSIONS The proposed technique significantly improves our previously developed CADe system in the initial candidate detection stage.
African-American Perspectives on 9-11*

Abstract In the past few years, terrorism has introduced most Americans to trauma on their own soil. However, African-Americans have lived through trauma and terrorism within the U.S. for centuries. African-Americans have very different perceptions of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Historical data reveal that African-Americans have endured various forms of domestic terrorism for hundreds of years. Based on a national survey, most African-Americans have very different perceptions of 9/11 than European-Americans. The authors propose there is a great deal to be learned from African-Americans regarding how to manage terrorism. But, to cull the valuable lessons from African-Americans’ experience of terrorism, there has to be respect for African -American experiences.
Agent-Based Distributed Computing for Dynamic Networks

Dynamic networks of personal computers are characterized by sudden, unexpected failures of computational nodes, as well as the addition of new computers at any given moment. This paper presents a new agent-oriented system for distributed computing, named ADiS, specifically designed for operating in these kinds of environments. The system relies on the agent technology in order to adapt to dynamic changes in a computational net-work. Originally envisioned as a distributed system for distance matrix calculations, ADiS has recently been redesigned as a general-purpose, extensible architecture for arbitrary computing in a distributed environment. Experimental results demonstrate that the usage of ADiS has a significant positive impact onto the execution time of lengthy processes. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5755/j01.itc. 43.1. 4588
The Insulin Sensitivity Index: Correlation in Dogs Between Values Determined from the Intravenous Glucose Tolerance Test and the Euglycemic Glucose Clamp

We previously proposed the insulin sensitivity index, S1as an absolute measure of whole body tissue sensitivity to insulin. S1 is defined, in the physiologic range of insulin action, as the effect of insulin to augment glucose's ability to reduce its own plasma level. This parameter can be determined from the frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT) by using a digital computer to find the coefficients of a minimal mathematical model of glucose kinetics. In the present study we compared, in normal dogs, S, determined from the IVGTT to an analogous parameter “S1(clamp)” calculated from the euglycemic glucose clamp (EGC). Fifteen pairs of experiments (1 IVGTT and 1 EGC) were performed on 12 animals. IVGTTs: After glucose injection (0.3 g/kg), frequent blood samples were taken over the subsequent 3 h. KG ranged from 1.7 to 4.7 %/min, and integrated insulin from 0.4 to 5.9 (μU/ml) min for 0–60 min. S1 varied over a ninefold range from 1.0 to 9.1 × 10−4 (min−1)/μU/ml), with a mean of 4.3 ± 0.7 × 10−4. Fractional glucose disappearance rate independent of insulin (p1) was 4.3 ± 0.5 %/min. EGCs: Low-rate insulin infusion (8 mU/min from 1 to 150 min) elevated plasma insulin (INS) from 15 ± 4 to 43 ± 10 μU/ml. Glucose was infused (GINF) at 119 ± 20 mg/min to maintain euglycemia. Moderate insulin infusion (40 mU/min: 151–300 min) further elevated plasma insulin (to 176 ± 37 μU/ml) and the requisite glucose infusion (to 372 ± 36 mg/min). S1(clamp) was calculated in steady state as the increase in glucose infusion per increment in insulin above basal, normalized to the basal glucose and body weight [GINF/(Gb × BW × δINS)]. S1(clamp) ranged from 3.1 to 40.5 × 10−4 (dl/kg/min)/μU/ml). The values of S1 and S1(clamp) were highly correlated (r = 0.82, P < 0.005). These studies suggest that the insulin sensitivity index, S1determined from the IVGTT is a useful measure of insulin sensitivity, which is capable of differentiating sensitivities among a normal population.