Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Use of ECT and MST in treating depression

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been used clinically since 1938. Its most common use is in the treatment of depression: first line treatment where rapid recovery is a priority, but more frequently as an effective treatment for patients who do not respond to pharmacological and psychological approaches. Whilst it is widely hailed as an effective treatment, concerns about its effect on cognition remain. The development of magnetic seizure therapy (MST) over the past decade has attempted to devise a therapy with comparable efficacy to ECT, but without the associated cognitive side effects. The rationale for this is that MST uses magnetic fields to induce seizures in the cortex, without electrical stimulation of brain structures involved with memory. MST has been used successfully in the treatment of depression, yet there is a dearth of literature in comparison with ECT. We present a systematic review of the literature on ECT (from 2009–2011) and MST (from 2001–2011).
Non-invasive estimation of the metabolic heat production of breast tumors using digital infrared imaging

In this work the metabolic heat generated by breast tumors is estimated indirectly and non-invasively using digital infrared images and numerically simulating a simplified breast model and a cancerous tumor. This parameter can be of clinical importance since it has been related to the doubling volume's time and malignancy for that particular tumor. The results indicate that digital infrared imaging has the potential to estimate in a noninvasive way the malignancy of a tumor by calculating its metabolic heat generation from bioheat thermal transfer models.
A Comparison of Data Models and APIs of NoSQL Datastores

NoSQL datastore systems are a new generation of non-relational databases. More than fifty NoSQL systems have been already implemented, each with different characteristics — especially, with different data models and different APIs to access the data. In this paper we describe and compare the data models and operations offered by a number of representative NoSQL datastores, which we have directly used while developing the SOS (Save Our Systems) and ONDM (Object-NoSQL Datastore Mapper) frameworks. We discuss how these NoSQL systems can be used to manage a database consisting of collections of objects. Furthermore, we report on some experimental results concerning the use of the various systems and the implementation of the data representations described in this paper.
Robust speaker identification using cross-correlation GTF-ICA feature

Robust feature for speaker identification in noisy environments is proposed. This method is inspired by the human binaural auditory system. A pair of microphones is used to replicate human ears in the processing. Cross-correlation processing is taken of the microphone outputs after Gammatone bandpass filtering, rectification and compression. ICA is then applied to the real cepstrum of the correlated waveform to extract the dominant components from each frequency band. The resulting feature emphases the difference in the statistical structures among speakers. Compared to the commonly used MFCC techniques, the proposed method is more robust to background noises and provides higher identification rate in real noisy environments for text-independent speaker identification systems. A specially prepared noisy speech corpus was used to gauge the performance of the proposed feature.
An XSL Analysis on BES

Since the proposal of the XSL cryptanalysis and the construction of the big encryption system (BES), the potential for algebraic attacks against the advanced encryption system (AES), especially over GF(28), has attracted a lot of attention from the cryptographic community. This paper presents an analysis of the compact XSL attack applied to the BES with the key schedule involved. We introduce a new strategy to reduce the number of S-boxes which is used to multiply the equations derived from the cipher linear layer. Then the scale of the expanded equation system can be reduced and it, in theory, leads to a better result than exhaustive key search: for BES corresponding to 128-bit key size AES, the complexity estimate is about 297.
Association between vitamin B12 intake and EURRECA's prioritized biomarkers of vitamin B12 in young populations: a systematic review

Abstract Objective To review evidence on the associations between vitamin B12 intake and its biomarkers, vitamin B12 intake and its functional health outcomes, and vitamin B12 biomarkers and functional health outcomes. Design A systematic review was conducted by searching electronic databases, until January 2012, using a standardized strategy developed in the EURRECA network. Relevant articles were screened and sorted based on title and abstract, then based on full text, and finally included if they met inclusion criteria. A total of sixteen articles were included in the review. Setting Articles covered four continents: America (n 4), Europe (n 8), Africa (n 1) and Asia (n 3). Subjects Population groups included healthy infants, children and adolescents, and pregnant and lactating women. Results From the total number of 5815 papers retrieved from the initial search, only sixteen were eligible according to the inclusion criteria: five for infants, five for children and adolescents, and six for pregnant and lactating women. Conclusions Only one main conclusion could be extracted from this scarce number of references: a positive association between vitamin B12 intake and serum vitamin B12 in the infant group. Other associations were not reported in the eligible papers or the results were not provided in a consistent manner. The low number of papers that could be included in our systematic review is probably due to the attention that is currently given to research on vitamin B12 in elderly people. Our observations in the current systematic review justify the idea of performing well-designed studies on vitamin B12 in young populations.
Comparison of 15 different stents in superficial femoral arteries by high resolution MRI ex vivo and in vivo

To evaluate the MRI compatibility of 15 different commercially available, new generation, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)‐approved stents suitable for deployment in superficial femoral arteries (SFAs), and to identify the ones that permit MRI to visualize the wall and lumen of stented arteries with sufficient spatial and contrast resolution to quantify restenosis after stent placement.
Learning Parametric-Output HMMs with Two Aliased States

In various applications involving hidden Markov models (HMMs), some of the hidden states are aliased, having identical output distributions. The minimality, identifiability and learnability of such aliased HMMs have been long standing problems, with only partial solutions provided thus far. In this paper we focus on parametric-output HMMs, whose output distributions come from a parametric family, and that have exactly two aliased states. For this class, we present a complete characterization of their minimality and identifiability. Furthermore, for a large family of parametric output distributions, we derive computationally efficient and statistically consistent algorithms to detect the presence of aliasing and learn the aliased HMM transition and emission parameters. We illustrate our theoretical analysis by several simulations.
Dynamic behavior and autonomic regulation of ectopic atrial pacemakers.

BACKGROUND Heart rate (HR) variability reflects the neural regulation of normal pacemaker tissue, but the autonomic nervous regulation of abnormal atrial foci originating outside the sinus node has not been well characterized. We compared the HR variability of tachycardias originating from the ectopic foci and the sinus node. METHODS AND RESULTS R-R-interval variability was analyzed from 24-hour Holter recordings in 12 patients with incessant ectopic atrial tachycardia (average HR 107+/-14 bpm), 12 subjects with sinus tachycardia (average HR 106+/-9 bpm), and 24 age- and sex-matched subjects with normal sinus rhythm (average HR 72+/-8 bpm). Time- and frequency-domain HR variability measures, along with approximate entropy, short- and long-term correlation properties of R-R intervals (exponents alpha(1) and alpha(2)), and power-law scaling (exponent beta), were analyzed. Time- and frequency-domain measures of HR variability did not differ between subjects with ectopic and sinus tachycardia. Fractal scaling exponents and approximate entropy were similar in sinus tachycardia and normal sinus rhythm, but the short-term scaling exponent alpha(1) was significantly lower in ectopic atrial tachycardia (0.71+/-0.16) than in sinus tachycardia (1.16+/-0.13; P<0.001) or normal sinus rhythm (1.19+/-0.11; P<0.001). Abrupt prolongations in R-R intervals due to exit blocks from the ectopic foci or instability in beat-to-beat R-R dynamics were the major reasons for altered short-term HR behavior during ectopic tachycardias. CONCLUSIONS HR variability obtained by time- and frequency-domain methods does not differ between ectopic and sinus tachycardias, which suggests that abnormal atrial foci are under similar long-term autonomic regulation as normal pacemaker tissue. Short-term R-R-interval dynamics are altered toward more random behavior in ectopic tachycardia, which may result from a specific autonomic disturbance or an intrinsic abnormality of ectopic atrial pacemakers.
Packet Loss Based Real Time Network Condition Estimation

Packet loss behaviors have been studied for many years. Traditional packet loss evaluation criteria are not sufficient to describe characteristics of losses: the loss rate is too simple while traditional loss episodes sometimes are not stable due to the randomness of loss events. In this paper, we propose an extended loss episode approach, merged loss episode based on the traditional definition, to estimate the network condition. Also we presented the corresponding algorithm for calculation. Simulation results show that compared with traditional loss episodes, the merged version could be more stable and effective to measure network performance on loss issues.
Ribosomes Specifically Bind to Mammalian Mitochondria via Protease-sensitive Proteins on the Outer Membrane*

The interaction of ribosomes with specific components of membranes is one of the central themes to the co-translational targeting and import of proteins. To examine ribosome binding to mammalian mitochondria, we used ribosome-nascent chain complexes (RNCs) to follow the in vitro binding of ribosomes that correspond to the initial targeting stage of proteins. Mitochondria were found to contain a limited number of RNC binding sites on the outer membrane. It required more than twice the amount of non-translating ribosomes to inhibit RNC binding by one-half, indicating that RNCs have a competitive binding advantage. In addition, we found that RNCs bind mainly through the ribosomal component and not the nascent chain. RNCs bind via protease-sensitive proteins on the outer membrane, as well as by protease-insensitive components suggesting that two classes of receptors exist. We also show that binding is sensitive to cation conditions. Nearly all of the binding was inhibited in 0.5 m KCl, indicating that they interact with the membrane primarily through electrostatic interactions. In addition, disruption of RNC structure by removing magnesium causes the complete inhibition of binding under normal binding conditions indicating that it is the intact ribosome that is crucial for binding and not the nascent chain. These findings support the hypothesis that the outer mitochondrial membrane contains receptors specific for ribosomes, which would support the conditions necessary for co-translational import.
Progressive Accumulative Routing: Fundamental Concepts and Protocol

This paper considers a multi-hop network in which relay nodes cooperate to minimize the total energy consumed in transmitting a (unicast) packet from a source to a destination. We propose the Progressive Accumulative Routing (PAR) algorithm, which progressively performs relay discovery, relay ordering and relay power allocation in a distributed manner, such that each relay node only needs local information. We assume Destination Energy Accumulation, in which the destination accumulates the energy of multiple received copies of a packet, each of which is too weak to be reliably decoded by itself, while the lower complexity relay nodes use a decode-and-forward approach. We also provide a closed-form analysis of the energy-savings achieved by the PAR when a relay node is added to an already existing DEA route. Simulations verify that the algorithm considerably reduces the total energy consumption, and can be implemented efficiently.
Scholarly use of information: graduate students' information seeking behaviour

Introduccion. Este estudio exploro el comportamiento de informacion de estudiantes graduados relativo a su proceso de investigacion y las actividades eruditas. Metodo. Se realizaron entrevistas semi-estructuradas en profundidad a cien estudiantes graduados representativos de todas las disciplinas y departamentos de la Universidad Carnegie Mellon. Analisis. Trabajando en parejas, codificamos las transcripciones de las entrevistas en categorias significativas usando el software ATLAS.ti. Se intento reducir la subjetividad mediante el uso combinado de analisis cuantitativo y cualitativo. Resultados. Los estudiantes graduados empiezan a menudo con una reunion con profesores que proporcionan la orientacion, recomiendan y proporcionan recursos. Otros estudiantes ayudan a dar forma a las actividades de investigacion de los estudiantes graduados, y el personal de la biblioteca universitaria proporciona orientaciones para encontrar recursos. Internet juega un papel principal, aunque los estudiantes continuan usando recursos impresos. La conveniencia, la falta de sofisticacion en la busqueda y uso de recursos y los requisitos del curso afectan su comportamiento de informacion. Los resultados varian segun las disciplinas y los programas. Conclusion. Las bibliotecas pueden influir en el comportamiento de informacion de estudiantes reevaluando sus programas instruccionales y proporcionando recursos y servicios. Pueden tomar la delantera trabajando con el personal academico para orientar a los estudiantes.
Utility of Preoperative CA125 Assay in the Management Planning of Women Diagnosed with Uterine Cancer

Objective. This study assesses the role of preoperative serum CA125 levels in the planning treatment options for women diagnosed with uterine cancer. Material and Method. Ninety five consecutive patients diagnosed with uterine cancer during a four-year period were identified. Age ranged from 35 to 89 years with a mean age of 69 years. The preoperative CA125 levels were dichotomised at 28 U/mL (using ROC analysis to identify the best discriminating threshold for 5-year survival). This level was then correlated with preoperative prognostic indicators: patient age, tumour grade, and histopathological tumour cell type. Survival data was plotted using Kaplan-Meier curves and analysed using the log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed to identify the predictors of overall survival. Results. The mean age of patients was 69 years (range: 35–89). On univariate analysis, the use of preoperative CA125 levels of greater or less than 28 U/mL correlated significantly with age (P = 0.01), the grade of disease (P = 0.02) and unfavourable tissue type (P = 0.03). This threshold CA125 level had a sensitivity of 75%, specificity of 76%, positive predictive value of 35% and negative predicative value of 96.25%, and a likelihood ratio of 3.12 for predicting nodal disease. Using a threshold of preoperative CA125 level of 28 U/mL (area under curve: 0.60) was also a significant predictor of 5-year survival (log-rank test, P = 0.01). Using Cox multivariate survival analysis to identify predictive preoperative factors overall, unfavourable cell type was the strongest predictor of survival (Chi square = 36.5, df = 4, and P = 0.001), followed by preoperative CA125 level (CA125 > 28 U/mL, P = 0.011) and unfavourable preoperative grade (P = 0.017). Amongst patients with a favourable histological tissue type (endometrioid), preoperative CA125 levels predicted overall survival (Chi square = 6.039, df = 2, P = 0.02); however unfavourable preoperative grade did not (P = 0.5). Overall, at five-year follow-up, while there were no deaths among the women with preoperative serum CA125 less than 12 U/mL, eleven of the twenty-three deaths (47.82%) in the study occurred in women with a preoperative CA125 more than 28 U/mL. Conclusions. A preoperative CA125 assay for women with uterine cancer is a relatively inexpensive, reproducible, and objective test which provides valuable information regarding the risk of metastatic disease and overall likelihood of long term survival. Patients with a low likelihood of metastatic/nodal disease (favourable tissue type and CA125 level < 28 U/mL) and significant comorbidities may benefit from avoiding an extended complete staging procedure. Alternatively, a high level of CA125 may prompt further imaging and multidisciplinary discussions to plan for individualised management and consideration for recruitment to clinical trials.
Denosumab in men receiving androgen-deprivation therapy for prostate cancer.

BACKGROUND Androgen-deprivation therapy is well-established for treating prostate cancer but is associated with bone loss and an increased risk of fracture. We investigated the effects of denosumab, a fully human monoclonal antibody against receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB ligand, on bone mineral density and fractures in men receiving androgen-deprivation therapy for nonmetastatic prostate cancer. METHODS In this double-blind, multicenter study, we randomly assigned patients to receive denosumab at a dose of 60 mg subcutaneously every 6 months or placebo (734 patients in each group). The primary end point was percent change in bone mineral density at the lumbar spine at 24 months. Key secondary end points included percent change in bone mineral densities at the femoral neck and total hip at 24 months and at all three sites at 36 months, as well as incidence of new vertebral fractures. RESULTS At 24 months, bone mineral density of the lumbar spine had increased by 5.6% in the denosumab group as compared with a loss of 1.0% in the placebo group (P<0.001); significant differences between the two groups were seen at as early as 1 month and sustained through 36 months. Denosumab therapy was also associated with significant increases in bone mineral density at the total hip, femoral neck, and distal third of the radius at all time points. Patients who received denosumab had a decreased incidence of new vertebral fractures at 36 months (1.5%, vs. 3.9% with placebo) (relative risk, 0.38; 95% confidence interval, 0.19 to 0.78; P=0.006). Rates of adverse events were similar between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS Denosumab was associated with increased bone mineral density at all sites and a reduction in the incidence of new vertebral fractures among men receiving androgen-deprivation therapy for nonmetastatic prostate cancer. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00089674.)
Evolution of microstructure and mechanical properties during Q&P processing of medium-carbon steels with different silicon levels

Evolution of microstructure during heat treatment plays a fundamental role in the resulting mechanical properties of steel. Today, mechanical properties in conjunction with technological properties, such as weldability, formability, and machinability, and their optimum combinations, are widely discussed in a number of mechanical engineering disciplines. In this manner, requirements arise for developing steels which could offer high strength and good formability, and which could be used for making parts with high resistance to failure and with a long life. One present-day example of such steels involves Q&P-processed martensitic steels. Their properties are dictated by their treatment, as well as their alloying, particularly by the silicon content. Silicon fundamentally affects microstructure evolution during Q&P processing and, as a result, mechanical properties. With this way it is possible to receive microstructures consinsting of martensite and retained austenite with an ultimate tensile stress of more than 1600 MPa and a uniform elongation of more than 12 %.
Age related expression of Werner's syndrome protein in selected tissues and coexpression of transcription factors.

AIMS Werner's syndrome (WS) is an uncommon autosomal recessive disease resulting from mutational inactivation of human WRN helicase, Werner's syndrome protein (WRNp). Patients with WS progressively develop a variety of aging characteristics after puberty. The aim of this study was to determine the distribution of WRNp and the expression of the transcription factors regulating WRN gene expression in a variety of human organs in an attempt to understand the WS phenotype. METHODS Tissue specimens were obtained from 16 controls aged from 27 gestational weeks to 70 years of age and a 56 year old female patient with WS. The distribution of WRNp and the expression of the transcription factors regulating WRN gene expression-SP1, AP2, and retinoblastoma protein (Rb)- were studied in the various human organs by immunohistochemical and immunoblot analyses. RESULTS In the healthy controls after puberty, high expression of WRNp was detected in seminiferous epithelial cells and Leydig cells in the testis, glandular acini in the pancreas, and the zona fasciculata and zona reticularis in the adrenal cortex. In addition, the SP1 and AP2 transcription factors, which regulate WRNp gene expression, appeared in an age dependent manner in those regions where WRNp was expressed. In controls after puberty, SP1 was expressed in the testis and adrenal gland, whereas AP2 was expressed in the pancreas. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that the age specific onset of WS may be related to age dependent expression of WRNp in specific organs.
Minimally invasive piezosurgery for a safe placement of blade dental implants in jaws with severe bone loss

Aim Severe atrophies of edentulous jaws require major reconstructive bone surgery in order to allow the placement of root-form implants with standard diameter. These bone augmentation techniques represent the best option reported in the literature, but they are often rejected by patients because of their high economic and biological costs in addition to the possibility of failure in the short and/or long term. In the maxilla regenerative methods (onlay, inlay, and distraction) have high success rates, whereas in the mandible, especially in the distal atrophic area, they are not so predictable. In such situations an alternative technique for fixed prosthethic rebilitation is the insertion of platform blade implants, which have their elective indication for atrophic bone ridges with reduced width, owing to their reduced thickness. The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the use of piezoelectric ultrasonic handpieces, in order to simplify the placement of blade implants, making it safer and less traumatic than with conventional surgical procedures. Materials and methods Platform blade implants are extension implant functionally and aesthetically reliable, even if they require a more difficult surgical technique compared with the one currently in use for screw implants. A minimally invasive procedure by means of piezosurgery that was performed on 142 subjects is presented and a case is reported which highlights the successful results. Results and conclusion The use of piezoelectric ultrasonic handpieces simplifies the surgical procedure for the placement of blade implant, making it safer and less traumatic.