Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mouth Cancer

Mouth cancer is infrequently mentioned in the gynecologic literature. Since the designation of the obstetrician as the primary care provider or gatekeeper of a woman’s health care, the obstetrician/gynecologist may be the only physician a woman frequents. Thus, the diagnosis of extragenital cancers (eg, mouth cancer) may fall into the purview of the gynecologist. This behooves the gynecologist to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of mouth cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates in 2001 there will be over 1 million new cancers diagnosed. Oral cavity and pharyngeal cancers will account for approximately 30,000 of these new cases; one third of these cancers will be diagnosed in women. Over this same year, a quarter of a million women will die of cancer. Oral cancers will be responsible for 1% of these deaths. Unfortunately, despite advances in surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, survival rates have not improved in the last three decades. However, more organs (eg, larynx) are preserved with chemoradiation. Ultimately, 50% of people who develop oral cancer will succumb to this disease. Classically, the male to female ratio has been 10:1. Regrettably, with the rise of tobacco abuse in young women, this ratio has now climbed to 2:1. The majority of patients with mouth cancer are older than 40, with the peak incidence at 55 years. Fortunately, the oral cavity is easy to examine, requiring only a bright light.
Resistance to Fas-mediated Apoptosis of Peripheral T Cells in Human T Lymphocyte Virus Type I (HTLV-I) Transgenic Mice with Autoimmune Arthropathy

Transgenic mice carrying the env-pX region of human T lymphocyte virus type I (HTLV-I) develop autoimmune arthropathy in high incidence. Adopting the approach that Fas-mediated apoptosis has a critical function in the elimination of self-reactive T cells, we examined the involvement of this apoptosis in the induction of autoimmunity in HTLV-I transgenic mice. Splenic T cells derived from the transgenic mice were more resistant to apoptosis induced by anti-Fas mAb than those of the nontransgenic mice, whereas no appreciable difference in apoptosis was detected for thymocytes from either mouse's type. The resistance of transgenic T cells may be due to Tax coded in the pX region, since Tax mediates the inhibition of anti-Fas– induced apoptosis in mature T cell line, Jurkat. Among the transgenic mice, the extent of the resistance to Fas-mediated apoptosis was further enhanced in transgenic T cells with disease. These results suggest that the escape of self-reactive T cells from Fas-mediated apoptosis in the periphery, is critical for the development of autoimmune arthropathy in HTLV-I transgenic mice.
Survey On Role Of Image Processing Techniques In Plants Pathology

This paper presents a survey on different image processing techniques to identify and classify plant diseases. Growing pollution, nutrient deficiency, drought etc are the reasons because of which plants are prone to the different diseases. Diseases can be found on root, stem, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits. To suggest appropriate remedy for corresponding disease, identification and classification of diseases is very important. Human Vision has limitations in identifying the diseases and it affects the accuracy. Accurate and timely identification/detection of the diseases keep away the plants from qualitative and quantitative loss. This paper explains different image processing techniques to detect the diseases.
Comparing Acute Toxicity of Gunshot Particles, from Firing Conventional and Lead-Free Ammunition, in Pulmonary Epithelial Cell Cultures

Numerous studies demonstrated that the use of lead (Pb)-containing ammunition is associated with mainly chronic health problems and also is a burden on the environment and wildlife. Recently, a number of reports showed evidence of undesirable acute health effects related to the use of newly developed Pb-free small-caliber ammunition. In this study, particles from leaded and Pb-free ammunition were collected in liquid collection medium, in a highly controlled chamber, while firing a pistol (9 mm) or a rifle (7.62 × 51 mm). The emitted particles were typically smaller than 4 μm, with the great majority in even smaller size ranges, as shown by gravimetrical analysis and a multistage impactor. Chemical analysis revealed significant differences in content and concentration of several metals in the particles. After administration of the liquids to alveolar and bronchial in vitro cell systems, particles were taken up by the cells; the Pb-free particles displayed higher cytotoxicity (EC50 = 2 μg/cm2) than particles from Pb ammunition. High correlation factors (>0.9) were found between cell death and content of copper and zinc. Particles from both Pb-containing and Pb-free ammunition were able to induce oxidative stress and the proinflammatory marker interleukin (IL)-8 in both in vitro systems. These results support previous findings that indicate an association between gunshot emissions and metal fume fever. This study demonstrates the usefulness of combining chemical data with biological in vitro responses in assessing acute toxicological effects from emissions from firing both Pb and Pb-free ammunition.
Hybrid in-database inference for declarative information extraction

In the database community, work on information extraction (IE) has centered on two themes: how to effectively manage IE tasks, and how to manage the uncertainties that arise in the IE process in a scalable manner. Recent work has proposed a probabilistic database (PDB) based declarative IE system that supports a leading statistical IE model, and an associated inference algorithm to answer top-k-style queries over the probabilistic IE outcome. Still, the broader problem of effectively supporting general probabilistic inference inside a PDB-based declarative IE system remains open. In this paper, we explore the in-database implementations of a wide variety of inference algorithms suited to IE, including two Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms, the Viterbi and the sum-product algorithms. We describe the rules for choosing appropriate inference algorithms based on the model, the query and the text, considering the trade-off between accuracy and runtime. Based on these rules, we describe a hybrid approach to optimize the execution of a single probabilistic IE query to employ different inference algorithms appropriate for different records. We show that our techniques can achieve up to 10-fold speedups compared to the non-hybrid solutions proposed in the literature.
Model comparisons for estimating carbon emissions from North American wildland fire

Research activities focused on estimating the direct emissions of carbon from wildland fires across North America are reviewed as part of the North American Carbon Program disturbance synthesis. A comparison of methods to estimate the loss of carbon from the terrestrial biosphere to the atmosphere from wildland fires is presented. Published studies on emissions from recent and historic time periods and five specific cases are summarized, and new emissions estimates are made using contemporary methods for a set of specific fire events. Results from as many as six terrestrial models are compared. We find that methods generally produce similar results within each case, but estimates vary based on site location, vegetation (fuel) type, and fire weather. Area normalized emissions range from 0.23 kg C m−2 for shrubland sites in southern California/NW Mexico to as high as 6.0 kg C m−2 in northern conifer forests. Total emissions range from 0.23 to 1.6 Tg C for a set of 2003 fires in chaparral-dominated landscapes of California to 3.9 to 6.2 Tg C in the dense conifer forests of western Oregon. While the results from models do not always agree, variations can be attributed to differences in model assumptions and methods, including the treatment of canopy consumption and methods to account for changes in fuel moisture, one of the main drivers of variability in fire emissions. From our review and synthesis, we identify key uncertainties and areas of improvement for understanding the magnitude and spatial-temporal patterns of pyrogenic carbon emissions across North America.
Chemokines in Vascular Dysfunction and Remodeling

Vascular remodeling stands for structural changes of the vessel wall in response to various noxious stimuli, which results in reorganization of the vessel wall architecture. Luminal narrowing because of neointima formation and constrictive remodeling leading to hypoperfusion is the most relevant clinical effect. Smooth muscle cell (SMC) accumulation, inflammatory cell recruitment, and endothelial regeneration are the critical parts in obstructive vascular remodeling. Chemokines and chemokine receptors have a great impact on initiating and progressing neointimal formation by controlling each step of the remodeling process. SDF-1&agr; regulates vascular repair by CXCR4-dependent smooth muscle progenitor cell recruitment, which contributes to the maladaptive response to injury. The three distinct chemokine-chemokine receptor pairs MCP-1/CCR2, RANTES/CCR5, and Fractalkine/CX3CR1 direct lesional leukocyte infiltration. In addition MCP-1/CCR2 and Fractalkine/CX3CR1 increase neointimal SMC expansion. In contrast, KC/Gro-&agr; supports endothelial recovery through CXCR2, which attenuates neointima formation. These findings highlight the importance to characterize specific functions of the chemokine network to enable therapeutic intervention.
Formulações e algoritmos baseados em programação linear inteira para o problema quadrático da árvore geradora mínima. (Formulations and algorithms based on linear integer programming for the quadratic minimum spanning tree problem)

Este trabalho trata do Problema de Roteamento de Veiculos com Coleta e Entrega Simultâneas, onde devem ser desenvolvidas rotas para atender as demandas de coleta e entrega de um conjunto de consumidores. O problema e abordado de maneira heuristica e exata. Inicialmente, sao desenvolvidas algumas heuristicas hibridas baseadas em ideias de diversas metaheuristicas. Essas heuristicas sao testadas em diversas instâncias e comparadas aos melhores resultados da literatura. Apos isso, e desenvolvido um metodo exato Branch-and-price, nesse contexto, sao propostas novas estrategias para a resolucao do subproblema, um Problema de Caminho Elementar Minimo com Restricao de Recursos. E apresentada tambem uma estrategia em que limites inferiores obtidos a partir da resolucao do subproblema sao utilizados no processo de decisao do branching. O algoritmo Branch-and-price e testado e comparado a um algoritmo Branch-and-cut-and-price da literatura.
Animated game pieces, avatars as roles, tools and props

Since Turkle’s seminal work Life on the screen (1995), avatars have been described as a form of alter egos, being means for exploring and playing with identity. Following this line of reasoning, computer gaming is seen as an activity where we become immersed in a fictitious world, pretending to be the character we play. Drawing upon empirical observations of children’s game-play I argue that the relation between the avatar and the player is a more multifaceted affair. The meanings of avatars depend upon how they are framed by the player, thus they can have at least three different functions. Avatars can become roles for socio-dramatic interaction. As extensions of the player’s agency, avatars can become tools for handling the game state. Finally when choosing and using avatars in the presence of others, avatars can become a part of our identity, not as alter egos but as props for our presentation of self on the social arena surrounding the game.
FEMALE FETISHISM The Case of George Sand

In this age of feminism and poststructuralism I shall surprise no one by asserting that theory has a body and that that body like all bodies is sexed. The widespread use of the epithet "phallocentric" to qualify conceptual systems which place the phallus and the values it represents in a hegemonic position implicitly recognizes that sexual morphology informs the most apparently disembodied theories. In the past few years I have begun to explore the ways in which feminist modes of reading might be grounded in representations of the female body. My concern is not to counter phallocentrism by gynocentrism, rather to speculate on the modes of reading that might be derived from representations of the female body, a sexual body whose polycenteredness has been repeatedly emphasized by feminist theoreticians (Irigaray 1977). Specifically I have been concerned with the appropriation of psychoanalytic concepts (e.g. paranoia in Schor 1981) to ends for which they were not originally intended. In what follows I move from a striking representation of the female body in works by George Sand to the elaboration of a textual strategy specifically geared to taking this seemingly aberrant representation into account. Thus the writer's fetishism becomes the critic's, fetishism on fetishism we might say.
Correlation of Peri-Procedural Cardiac Enzyme Release with Atherosclerotic Plaque Burden using 3-D Fusion of Intravascular Ultrasound and Angiography

During the treatment of coronary atherosclerosis by percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), cardiac enzymes indicating cell or muscle damage may be released and measured. Controversy exists regarding the importance of release of cardiac enzymes (i.e., the MB isoenzyme of Creatine Kinase and Troponin) after coronary interventional procedures and the mechanism involved in this occurrence. While some have suggested that peri-procedural enzyme release or infarction may be a marker of atherosclerotic burden, others have shown its relationship to procedural complexity or plaque instability in unstable coronary syndromes. Using our previously developed and validated method for 3-D fusion of data from intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and X-ray angiography, we investigated in 19 coronary vessel segments of 16 patients in-vivo whether peri-procedural cardiac enzyme release correlates with lesion or vessel atherosclerotic burden. Our results showed no evidence of a positive relationship, with consistent findings of a negative correlation between lesion and vessel atherosclerotic burden and the procedure-related release of cardiac enzymes. Except for a negative correlation between %-area stenosis and enzyme release (p<0.02), none of the correlations was statistically significant. We concluded that cardiac enzyme release during complex PCI is not a marker of atherosclerotic burden, supporting previous concepts relating these indices to procedure complexity and unstable plaques.
Comparative assessment of leakage current in a photovoltaic grid connected single phase transformerless inverter system

Innovation in PV technology and increase in production capacity is making PV panel installation cost less expensive than past. To utilize available solar power effectively, high efficient power electronics converters are required. In a transformerless inverter system, several benefits such as reduction in cost, size and weight as well as high efficiency can be achieved. However, problem of leakage current, DC current injection and other safety issues occur in a system without isolation transformer. The common mode voltage is influenced by the selection of power electronic topology and PWM switching technique. Through this paper, the authors are making an effort to suggest suitable transformerless inverter topology based on comparison of leakage current. The PV inverter system connected to grid, is simulated for different transformerless inverter topology. Leakage current obtained from simulation result is compared to the standard norms. The control method is applied such that high efficiency and unity power factor is maintained. In addition a simple control structure is studied for two stage conversion.
Unilateral versus bilateral upper limb exercise therapy after stroke: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE To compare the effects of unilateral and bilateral training on upper limb function after stroke with regard to two key factors: severity of upper limb paresis and time of intervention post-stroke. DESIGN Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. METHODS Two authors independently selected trials for inclusion, assessed the methodological quality and extracted data. Study outcomes were pooled by calculating the (standardized) mean difference ((S)MD). Sensitivity analyses for severity and time of intervention post-stroke were applied when possible. RESULTS All 9 studies involving 452 patients showed homogeneity. In chronic patients with a mild upper limb paresis after stroke a marginally significant SMD for upper limb activity performance (SMD 0.34; 95% confidence interval): 0.04-0.63), and marginally significant MDs for perceived upper limb activity performance (amount of use: MD 0.42; 95% confidence interval: 0.09-0.76, and quality of movement: MD 0.45; 95% confidence interval: 0.12-0.78) were found in favour of unilateral training. All other MDs and SMDs were non-significant. CONCLUSION Unilateral and bilateral training are similarly effective. However, intervention success may depend on severity of upper limb paresis and time of intervention post-stroke.
Time and Energy Efficient Relay Transmission for Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Networks

The IEEE 802.15. 4 standard is widely recognized as one of the most successful enabling technologies for short range low rate wireless communications and it is used in IoT applications. It covers all the details related to the MAC and PHY layers of the IoT protocol stack. Due to the nature of IoT, the wireless sensor networks are autonomously self-organized networks without infrastructure support. One of the issues in IoT is the network scalability. To address this issue, it is necessary to support the multi-hop topology. The IEEE 802.15. 4 network can support a star, peer-to-peer, or cluster-tree topology. One of the IEEE 802.15. 4 topologies suited for the high predictability of performance guarantees and energy efficient behavior is a cluster-tree topology where sensor nodes can switch off their transceivers and go into a sleep state to save energy. However, the IEEE 802.15. 4 cluster-tree topology may not be able to provide sufficient bandwidth for the increased traffic load and the additional information may not be delivered successfully. The common drawback of the existing approaches is that they do not address the poor bandwidth utilization problem in IEEE 802.15. 4 cluster-tree networks, so it is difficult to increase the network performance. Therefore, to solve this problem in this paper we study a relay transmission protocol based on the standard protocol in the IEEE 802.15. 4 MAC. In the proposed scheme, the coordinators can relay data frames to their parent devices or their children devices without contention and can provide bandwidth for the increased traffic load or the number of devices. We also evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme through simulation. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can improve the reliability, the end-to-end delay, and the energy consumption.
Evolutionary and Functional Relationships of Colonization Factor Antigen I and Other Class 5 Adhesive Fimbriae of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT Colonization factor antigen I (CFA/I) is the archetype of eight genetically related fimbriae of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) designated class 5 fimbriae. Assembled by the alternate chaperone pathway, these organelles comprise a rigid stalk of polymerized major subunits and an apparently tip-localized minor adhesive subunit. We examined the evolutionary relationships of class 5-specific structural proteins and correlated these with functional properties. We sequenced the gene clusters encoding coli surface antigen 4 (CS4), CS14, CS17, CS19, and putative colonization factor antigen O71 (PCFO71) and analyzed the deduced proteins and the published homologs of CFA/I, CS1, and CS2. Multiple alignment and phylogenetic analysis of the proteins encoded by each operon define three subclasses, 5a (CFA/I, CS4, and CS14), 5b (CS1, CS17, CS19, and PCFO71), and 5c (CS2). These share distant evolutionary relatedness to fimbrial systems of three other genera. Subclass divisions generally correlate with distinguishing in vitro adherence phenotypes of strains bearing the ETEC fimbriae. Phylogenetic comparisons of the individual structural proteins demonstrated greater intrasubclass conservation among the minor subunits than the major subunits. To correlate this with functional attributes, we made antibodies against CFA/I and CS17 whole fimbriae and maltose-binding protein fusions with the amino-terminal half of the corresponding minor subunits. Anti-minor subunit Fab preparations showed hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) of ETEC expressing homologous and intrasubclass heterologous colonization factors while anti-fimbrial Fab fractions showed HAI activity limited to colonization factor-homologous ETEC. These results were corroborated with similar results from the Caco-2 cell adherence assay. Our findings suggest that the minor subunits of class 5 fimbriae may be superior to whole fimbriae in inducing antiadhesive immunity.
Geocast Routing Protocols for VANETs: Survey and Guidelines

In Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks VANETs, a multitude of applications need to address not a single vehicle on the road, nor the whole totality of vehicles, but only a community of vehicles which share the same geographic location for the purpose of safety, traffic efficiency, advertising or infotainment. The goal is to transmit data from a unique source node to a set of destination nodes satisfying a set of geographic criteria. Geocast routing protocol in VANETs appear to be the most appropriate routing technique for these applications. In this investigation, we introduce some existing Geocast routing protocols for VANETs and then we provide a classification of these protocols based on the used relay selection technique. We present a comparison of these Geocast routing protocols according to different criteria and finally, we highlight some directions we are considering for our Geocast routing solution for VANETs.
Trends in One-Year Recurrent Ischemic Stroke among the Elderly in the USA: 1994–2002

Background and Purpose: Of the 795,000 strokes occurring in the USA each year, over 20% are recurrent events. Little is known about how the rates of recurrent stroke in the country have changed over time. Our objective was to determine national trends in 1-year recurrent ischemic stroke rates by US county among the elderly from 1994 to 2002. Methods: One-year recurrent stroke rates following incident ischemic stroke (ICD-9 433, 434, 436) among all fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries were determined by US county for 1994–1996, 1997–1999, and 2000–2002. Bayesian spatiotemporal Poisson modeling was used to determine county-specific trends in recurrent stroke rates over time with risk adjustment for demographics, medical history and comorbid conditions. Results: The analysis included more than 2.5 million beneficiaries (56% women; mean age: 78 years; 87% white; n = 957,933 for 1994–1996; n = 838,330 for 1996–1999; n = 895,916 for 2000–2002) aggregated to all 3,118 US counties. After adjustment for changing patient demographics and comorbidities, there was a 4.5% decrease in recurrent stroke rates from 1994–1996 (13.2%) to 2000–2002 (12.6%; p for trend <0.0001). The geographic and temporal patterns were not uniform; the recurrent stroke rates decreased within sections of the Southeast (the ‘stroke belt’), but increased in counties in the middle and western sections of the USA. Conclusions: The overall recurrent ischemic stroke rates declined by almost 5% from 1994 to 2002, but temporal patterns varied markedly by region. Additional research is needed to identify the reasons for this geographic disparity.