Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-Term Survival and Complete Response to Adriamycin and Etoposide in a Case of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma has a poor prognosis and is poorly responsive to systemic chemotherapy. Here we describe a case with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma who achieved a complete response and has survived for more than 2 years, following treatment with a combination of adriamycin and etoposide (VP 16-213).
A novel frequency estimator and its comparative performances for short record lengths

Based on the linear prediction property of sinusoidal signals, a closed form unbiased frequency estimator for a real sinusoid in white noise is devised. The frequency estimate is determined from minimization of a modified least squares cost function. Computer simulations are included to evaluate the performance of the proposed estimator by comparing with existing closed form frequency estimators and the Cramér-Rao lower bound, particularly for short observation intervals.
Rough estimation of interior dimensions using structure from motion techniques

This article explains in short the techniques used to achieve the goals of a thesis of the same title. The thesis tries to create a new scene recostruction algorithm for extracting a rough estimation of a room from a point cloud using no extra information. The goal is to achieve a reconstruction that is structurally complete (no holes) and that maps the floor plan of the room with only minor errors.
Overlapping Realities: 
Exploring How the Culture and Management of an Early 
Childhood Education Centre Provides Teachers with 
Opportunities for Professional Dialogue

This research project investigated teachers' use of professional dialogue in one EC education centre in New Zealand. The qualitative case study highlighted the teachers' understanding of professional dialogue, the perceived purposes for professional dialogue and the cultural and organisational opportunities for professional dialogue. The theoretical understanding of dialogue was drawn from educational and organisational literature. The term professional dialogue was also supported in the literature and captured the identity and ethos of the EC teachers' role as a professional. Cultural historical activity theory was the conceptual framework which informed the methodology and was used for the data analysis. Multiple perspectives were acknowledged in a collective understanding of professional dialogue. The research found that issues of time are important: the timing of the dialogical space and the lack of time for professional dialogue. In addition, opportunities for professional dialogue within an education centre are limited, social and ad hoc conversations support a team approach to professional dialogue, and the presence of student teachers enhance teachers' professional dialogue.
Evaluating Congressional Constitutional Interpretation: Some Criteria and Two Informal Case Studies

Students of constitutional law regularly evaluate the Supreme Court’s performance in interpreting the Constitution. Evaluations of Congress’s performance of this same task are much less common. When we evaluate the Court’s performance, our comments are frequently critical. That is, we do not believe that the Court’s practice of interpretation of the Constitution is flawless. Yet, comments on Congress’s performance frequently are based on the assumption that flaws in that institution’s performance demonstrate its general inability to do a decent job of interpreting the Constitution. We also have developed a number of justifications for judicial review. Assertions that the Court has some institutional superiority in deciding constitutional questions are common in those justifications. Those assertions might support a general skepticism about Congress’s ability to interpret the Constitution well. Ordinarily, however, the claims about institutional superiority deal solely with structural characteristics of the Court and legislatures. So, for example, we note that electoral pressures may unduly influence members of Congress, even if they are sincerely interested in interpreting the Constitution correctly. In contrast, we point out, judges do not face such pressures.
Effects of combined and classic training on different isometric rate of force development parameters of leg extensors in female volleyball players: Discriminative analysis approach

Background: The aim of this study is to verify the effects of the combined and classic training of different isometric rates of force development (RFD) parameters of legs. Materials and Methods: Three groups of female athletes was tested: Experimental group (N = 12), classically trained group (N = 11), and control group (N = 20) of athletes. The isometric “standing leg extension” and “Rise on Toes” tests were conducted to evaluate the maximal force, time necessary time to reach it and the RFD analyzed at 100 ms, 180 ms, 250 ms from the onset, and 50-100% of its maximal result. Results: The maximal RFD of legs and calves are dominant explosive parameters. Special training enhanced the RFD of calves of GROUPSPEC at 100 ms (P = 0.05), at 180 ms (P = 0.039), at 250 ms (P = 0.039), at 50% of the Fmax (P = 0.031) and the Fmax (P = 0.05). Domination of GROUPSPEC toward GROUPCLASS and GROUPCONTROL is in case of legs at 100 ms (P = 0.04); at 180 ms (P = 0.04); at 250 ms (P = 0.00); at 50% of the Fmax (P = 0.01) and at the Fmax (P = 0.00); in case of calves at 100 ms (P = 0.07); 180 ms (P = 0.001); at 250 ms (P = 0.00); at 50% of the Fmax (P = 0.00) and at Fmax (P = 0.000). Conclusion: Dominant explosive factors are maximal RFD of leg extensors and calves, and legs at 250ms. Specific training enhanced explosiveness of calves of GROUPSPEC general and partial domination of GROUPSPEC by 87% over GROUPCLASS, and 35% over GROUPCONTROL.
Procesos de internacionalización en la educación superior de Costa Rica

One of the most important dimensions in the development of contemporary higher education is internationalization. The growing economic, political and cultural integration of today's society, favors the intensification of the activities of internationalization by settlements and the various tertiary education systems, as well as the elaboration of public policies to promote global linkages and aggregation of this dimension as a key element in the management of educational institutions in this sector. Among the most notable actions of internationalization are the mobility of students and teachers; the multiplication of networks and institutional and academic associations, in various areas of knowledge. There so, the application of mechanisms of mutual recognition of accredited degrees and programs; the promotion of shared titles or double degree programs; the inclusion in the curriculum of the international dimensions, as well as the proliferation of cross-border programs. All of them are expressions of internationalization in contemporary higher education. The purpose pursued with the study is to carry out an approach to knowledge about the level reached by the processes of internationalization in Costa Rican higher education. The investigation on the main actions promoted in this field, the forms of institutional arrangements adopted for its development, existing institutional policies and the impact of initiatives in institutional life and shape how internationalization is conceptualized, are some of the ways followed to get this purpose.
Should membership in employee involvement programs be voluntary

A key issue confronting managers when designing employee involvement programs (EIPs) is membership status. This refers to whether the corporation requires employees to participate in an EIP or allows voluntary participation. Employees report that membership status is a key issue when designing an EIP, since it can send a powerful signal—positive or negative—concerning the potential benefits that can be derived from the program. To support this view, a series of research studies on the effects of membership status on employee performance are reviewed below. Drawing on extensive consulting experience; data acquired from thousands of interviews with employees, staff and management; and a few thousand questionnaire responses to surveys on EIP design and administration practices in American business, the author examines key arguments that support EIP voluntary membership policies. His discussion sheds light on a paradoxical issue concerning EIPs—namely, if EIP is the foundation to a firm's competitiveness and, in fact, to its very survival, then why is participation by employees in EIP voluntary in a large percentage of U.S. companies?
Differences in Sensitivity of Financial Statement Users to Joint Cost Allocations: The Case of Nonprofit Organizations

Most of the research on joint costs has dealt with issues of pricing and of measuring managerial performance. The nonprofit sector provides an interesting opportunity to examine financial statement users' reactions to reported joint cost allocations. The sector is uniquely sensitive to expense classifications, because users of nonprofit financial statements are presumed to monitor organizational efficiency, not bottom-line income. Also, due to the sector's nature, it is possible to separately examine the reactions of different types of financial statement users. Prior research indicates that donations to nonprofit organizations are, under certain conditions, associated with accounting indicators of organizational efficiency. Allocations of joint costs of simultaneously educating the public and raising money can materially affect these indicators. Industry observers believe that organizations manipulate allocations to disguise fund-raising costs as program costs (Khalaf [1992]; Froelich and Knoepfle [ 19961). Standard setters have mandated disclosure of the amounts allocated in an effort to prevent abuses, and are currently reconsidering the issue (AICPA [ 1987, 19931). However, there have been no studies to date of the effect of these allocated costs on total donations or on donations from particular types of donors. This paper separates donors to a sample of 191 charities into two groups, with one group considered to be comprised of larger donors, and examines differences in their reactions to efficiency and quality signals. Prior research suggests that different types of donors vary in the time and effort they devote to choosing among charitable requests. The evidence in this study suggests that large donors are more sensitive to the quality and efficiency indicators tested, although the strength of the results varies. Interestingly, because most donations come from small donors, tests of total donations may indicate a lack of a significant relationship with some of
The Private R&D Investment Response to Federal Design and Technical Competitions

It is the federal government's role to promote investment in research and development (RD and (2) contracting with private firms and nonprofit organizations (such as universities) to perform RD the winning firm recovered its development costs in the form of profits on the sale of the airplanes, and the losing firms did not recoup their R&D investment" (Mansfield, 1971, p. 122).
How Commercial Food Videos Affect Female Customers - Measuring Female Bio-response Towards Commercial Food Videos

The concept design of a food television commercial (TVC) could affect the effectiveness of immersive media and user experience. Traditional methods (e.g., surveys or eye tracking) for evaluating the targeted consumer’s responses are serious limited in several aspects. In this paper, through closely working with the TVC designers, we used the data gathered from physiological sensor to measure viewers’ watching experiences. We thereby conclude how we used our own Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensors to measure audience responses to the three clips of food TVCs. The results demonstrate that GSR sensors can provide fine-grained information for the advertisement community. Compared to subjective evaluation methods, the continuous user experience can be vividly visualized, and this enables designers to efficiently evaluate the impact of a
Progress in SPECT/CT Imaging of Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer (other than skin cancer) among men in the United States. Although prostate cancer is one of the few cancers that grow so slowly that it may never threaten the lives of some patients, it can be lethal once metastasized. Indium-111 capromab pendetide (ProstaScint®, Cytogen Corporation, Princeton, NJ) imaging is indicated for staging and recurrence detection of the disease, and is particularly useful to determine whether or not the disease has spread to distant metastatic sites. However, the interpretation of 111 In-capromab pendetide is challenging without correlated structural information mostly because the radiopharmaceutical demonstrates nonspecific uptake in the normal vasculature, bowel, bone marrow, and the prostate gland. We developed an improved method of imaging and localizing 111 In-Capromab pendetide using a SPECT/CT imaging system. The specific goals included: i) development and application of a novel iterative SPECT reconstruction algorithm that utilizes a priori information from coregistered CT; and ii) assessment of clinical impact of adding SPECT/CT for prostate cancer imaging with capromab pendetide utilizing the standard and novel reconstruction techniques. Patient imaging studies with capromab pendetide were performed from 1999 to 2004 using two different SPECT/CT scanners, a prototype SPECT/CT system and a commercial SPECT/CT system (Discovery VH, GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI). SPECT projection data from both systems were reconstructed using an experimental iterative algorithm that compensates for both photon attenuation and collimator blurring. In addition, the data obtained from the commercial system were reconstructed with attenuation correction using an OSEM reconstruction supplied by the camera manufacturer for routine clinical interpretation. For 12 sets of patient data, SPECT images reconstructed using the experimental algorithm were interpreted separately and compared with interpretation of images obtained using the standard reconstruction technique. The experimental reconstruction algorithm improved spatial resolution, reduced streak artifacts, and yielded a better correlation with anatomic details of CT in comparison to conventional reconstruction methods (e.g., filtered back-projection or OSEM with attenuation correction only). Images produced with the experimental algorithm produced a subjective improvement in the confidence of interpretation for 11 of 12 studies. There were also changes in interpretations for 4 of 12 studies although the changes were not sufficient to alter prognosis or the patient treatment plan.
Increased restenosis in diabetes mellitus after coronary interventions is due to exaggerated intimal hyperplasia. A serial intravascular ultrasound study.

BACKGROUND The increased risk of restenosis after catheter-based coronary interventions in diabetic patients has not been determined. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) has shown that the decrease in arterial area is responsible for most of the late lumen loss in nonstented lesions and that intimal hyperplasia is responsible for all of the late lumen loss in stented lesions. METHODS AND RESULTS Serial (postintervention and follow-up at 5.6 +/- 3.3 months) IVUS was used to study 251 native coronary lesions in 241 patients; 63 patients had treated diabetes mellitus (oral hypoglycemic drugs or insulin). Interventional procedures included percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, directional or rotational atherectomy, excimer laser angioplasty, or Palmaz-Schatz stents. The external elastic membrane (EEM), stent, and lumen areas were measured. The plaque+media (P+M) area in nonstented lesions was calculated as EEM minus lumen area, and the intimal hyperplasia (IH) area in stented lesions was calculated as stent minus lumen area. The anatomic slice selected for serial analysis had an axial location within the target lesion at the smallest follow-up lumen area. Nonstented lesions in diabetics and nondiabetics had a similar decrease in EEM cross-sectional area (CSA; 1.9 +/- 2.8 versus 1.8 +/- 4.2 mm2; P = .6350). However, nonstented lesions in diabetics had a greater increase in P+M CSA (1.3 +/- 2.8 versus 0.6 +/- 2.5 mm2, P = .0720), and the increase in P+M CSA contributed a greater percentage to the decrease in lumen CSA. In stented lesions, the decrease in lumen CSA (5.2 +/- 2.5 versus 2.0 +/- 2.3 mm2) and the increase in IH CSA (5.0 +/- 2.8 versus 1.8 +/- 2.0 mm2) were greater in diabetics than nondiabetics (P = .0009 and P = .0007, respectively). These findings were even more striking in (nonstented and stented) restenotic lesions. CONCLUSIONS Serial IVUS analysis showed that the main reason for increased restenosis in diabetes mellitus was exaggerated intimal hyperplasia in both stented and nonstented lesions.
Polyadenylation accelerates the degradation of the mitochondrial mRNA associated with cytoplasmic male sterility in sunflower

In sunflower, PET1‐cytoplasmic male sterility is correlated with the presence of a novel mitochondrial gene (orf522) located 3′ to the atpA gene. The dicistronic atpA‐orf522 transcripts are preferentially destabilized in male florets of ‘restored to fertility’ plants as compared with sterile plants. In this report, we show that atpA‐orf522 transcripts may be polyadenylated in vivo at their 3′ termini and that a tissue‐specific increase in the level of polyadenylated atpA‐orf522 transcripts correlates with the tissue‐specific instability of atpA‐orf522 mRNAs in male florets of the restored hybrid plants. In addition, we have identified two distinct ribonuclease activities in sunflower mitochondria, one of which preferentially degrades polyadenylated as compared with non‐polyadenylated RNA substrates corresponding to the 3′ UTR of atpA‐orf522 transcripts. These in vivo and in vitro results show that polyadenylation is involved in the degradation pathway of the mitochondrial atpA‐orf522 transcripts and that polyadenylation can be developmentally regulated by a nuclear gene(s) upon restoration of fertility.
Phytotoxicity, accumulation and transport of silver nanoparticles by Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract The widespread availability of nano-enabled products in the global market may lead to the release of a substantial amount of engineered nanoparticles in the environment, which frequently display drastically different physiochemical properties than their bulk counterparts. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of citrate-stabilised silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) on the plant Arabidopsis thaliana at three levels, physiological phytotoxicity, cellular accumulation and subcellular transport of AgNPs. The monodisperse AgNPs of three different sizes (20, 40 and 80 nm) aggregated into much larger sizes after mixing with quarter-strength Hoagland solution and became polydisperse. Immersion in AgNP suspension inhibited seedling root elongation and demonstrated a linear dose–response relationship within the tested concentration range. The phytotoxic effect of AgNPs could not be fully explained by the released silver ions. Plants exposed to AgNP suspensions bioaccumulated higher silver content than plants exposed to AgNO3 solutions (Ag+ representative), indicating AgNP uptake by plants. AgNP toxicity was size and concentration dependent. AgNPs accumulated progressively in this sequence: border cells, root cap, columella and columella initials. AgNPs were apoplastically transported in the cell wall and found aggregated at plasmodesmata. In all the three levels studied, AgNP impacts differed from equivalent dosages of AgNO3.
Can you touch me?: the impact of physical contact on emotional engagement with a robot

As a robot has both characteristics of humanness and productness, we explored which characteristic is more dominant between them. In order to explore the impact of communicator types on social presence and shyness in physical contact, we executed a 3 (communicator types: a human vs. a robot vs. a product) with-in participants experiment (N=30). Participants felt more social presence to a person than a robot, and a product. On the other hand, participants felt more shyness to a person than a product, and a robot.
Is experience with one illicit drug associated with perceptions of the believability of anti-drug messages?

Cannabis (marijuana) use is on the increase in many countries, particularly among teenagers. Information dissemination is likely to become the main vehicle for minimising the harms associated with cannabis use. Thus there is a clear need to develop informative and convincing communication strategies to target young (potential and incipient) cannabis users. Cognitive dissonance theory, as well as research with warning labels on other products, suggests that young people who currently use cannabis will find the information about cannabis and the infonnation about other drugs (with which they have no experience) less believable than will non-users. This study finds support for the hypothesis regarding cannabis and cocaine, though not heroin. Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details Jones, S. C. & Rossiter, J. R. (2002). Is experience with one illicit drug associated with perceptions of the believability of anti-drug messages? Proceedings of the 31st European Marketing Academy Conference (EMAC), 28-31 May, 2002. Braga, Portugal: University of Minho. This conference paper is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow. edu.au/hbspapers/525 Is experience with one illicit drug associated with perceptions of the believability of antidrug messages? Sandra C. Jones l Graduate School of Public Health University of Wollongong
Alexidine: a Safer and an Effective Root Canal Irrigant than Chlorhexidine.

INTRODUCTION Chlorhexidine (CHX) is generally used as the final irrigating solution in root canal therapy. Recent studies have reported that, toxic precipitates containing parachloroaniline (PCA) are formed when CHX reacts with sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl). Whereas, Alexidine (ALX), a bisbiguanide disinfectant similar to CHX, has proven to form no precipitates with NaOCl. AIM To compare antimicrobial activity of different concentrations of ALX with CHX individually and when combined with NaOCl against E. faecalis strains. MATERIALS AND METHODS Different concentrations of ALX and CHX (0.5%, 1%, and 2%) were tested individually and when mixed with 2.5% NaOCl (1:1 ratio) using disc diffusion method against E. faecalis. After 24 hours incubation at 37°C, zones of inhibition were measured for each solution. The results obtained were statistically analysed using one way ANOVA and Scheffe's post-hoc tests. The p-value <0.001 was considered as highly significant. RESULTS Regardless of the concentrations, ALX obtained the best results in comparison to CHX. There was no statistically significant difference between ALX + NaOCl and CHX + NaOCl mixtures. CONCLUSION The present study showed that, the antimicrobial property of ALX against E. faecalis was found to be superior to CHX at same concentrations.