Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Open-Label Trial of 12-Week Simeprevir plus Peginterferon/Ribavirin (PR) in Treatment-Naïve Patients with Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Genotype 1 (GT1)

Background Shortening duration of peginterferon-based HCV treatment reduces associated burden for patients. Primary objectives of this study were to assess the efficacy against the minimally acceptable response rate 12 weeks post-treatment (SVR12) and safety of simeprevir plus PR in treatment-naïve HCV GT1 patients treated for 12 weeks. Additional objectives included the investigation of potential associations of rapid viral response and baseline factors with SVR12. Methods In this Phase III, open-label study in treatment-naïve HCV GT1 patients with F0–F2 fibrosis, patients with HCV-RNA <25 IU/mL (detectable/undetectable) at Week 2, and undetectable HCV-RNA at Weeks 4 and 8, stopped all treatment at Week 12. All other patients continued PR for a further 12 weeks. Baseline factors significantly associated with SVR12 were identified through logistic regression. Results Of 163 patients who participated in the study, 123 (75%) qualified for 12-week treatment; of these, 81 (66%) achieved SVR12. Baseline factors positively associated with SVR12 rates in patients receiving the 12-week regimen were: IL28B CC genotype: (94% SVR12); HCV RNA ≤800,000 IU/mL (82%); F0–F1 fibrosis (74%). Among all 163 patients, 94% experienced ≥1 adverse event (AE), 4% a serious AE, and 2.5% discontinued due to an AE. Reduced impairment in patient-reported outcomes was observed in the 12-week vs >12-week regimen. Conclusions Overall SVR12 rate (66%) was below the target of 80%, indicating that shortening of treatment with simeprevir plus PR to 12 weeks based on very early response is not effective. However, baseline factors associated with higher SVR12 rates were identified. Therefore, while Week 2 response alone is insufficient to predict efficacy, GT1 patients with favourable baseline factors may benefit from a shortened simeprevir plus PR regimen. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01846832
Student research poster: Compiling Boolean circuits to non-deterministic branching programs to be implemented by light switching circuits

The MOS transistor technology is well studied and found in billions of devices, however, there are several problems which force us to search for an alternative: The major problem - we almost reached the limits of current technology. Transistors are already being fabricated in atomic scale and soon we will be unable to make them any smaller. Each transistor device has switching and propagation delays since it is essentially a composition of resistors an capacitors. Current digital devices use CMOS based Boolean circuits (BCs) where one transistor in gate I triggers the transistors of the next gate in the BC and the calculation speed is limited by BC's depth.
Clinical Reasoning: A 76-year-old man remaining comatose after cardiopulmonary resuscitation

A 76-year-old man was admitted to the hospital after having a “cardiac arrest” while riding his bicycle and subsequently falling into a canal. Thirty minutes after the accident, he was resuscitated by an ambulance crew. They detected a ventricular tachycardia, which responded to defibrillation. Thereafter, there was a sinus bradycardia, which was treated with atropine and adrenaline. After 30 minutes of resuscitation, there was return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC). At admission to our hospital, the patient was comatose, with a body temperature of 30°C and Glasgow Coma Scale score (GCS) of E1M1V1. According to protocol for presumed acute hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, therapeutic hypothermia was started. The body temperature of the patient was kept at 32°C to 34°C for 24 hours. A few hours after starting hypothermia, twitches around the eyes and mouth were noticed and a neurology consultation was requested. Neurologic examination during hypothermia and under sedation showed a deeply comatose patient with intact pupillary reaction to light bilaterally and present oculocephalic reflex. He had multifocal random twitching movements involving the face, arms, and legs. These shock-like movements were found to increase as a result of external stimuli.
Control of Sawtoothed Grain Beetles (Coleoptera: Silvanidae) in Stored Oats by Using an Entomopathogenic Fungus in Conjunction with Seed Resistance

Abstract We tested the hypothesis that the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana would be more efficacious on oat cultivars that prolonged the immature developmental period of sawtoothed grain beetle, Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.), a storage pest. However, percentage of reduction in progeny production was similar on whole ‘Don’ and ‘Paul’ oats treated with fungus, even though immature developmental time was longer on whole ‘Don’ than on ‘Paul’ oats. In our initial test at 10 mg of conidia per kilogram of oats, the number of beetle progeny produced was reduced by 38–67% in whole oats, and there was no effect of the fungus on insects developing on cracked oats. Therefore, we conducted two dose–response studies that showed that adding 150 mg of conidia per kilogram to cracked or whole ‘Paul’ oats resulted in a 70 and 98% reduction, respectively, in number of progeny produced. No further reduction was obtained by adding 200 mg of conidia per kilogram of cracked or whole ‘Paul’ oats. Presence of the fungus did not affect developmental time in any of our tests. A previous study showed that cleaned oats should limit insect population growth to allow long-term storage of oats without insect damage. However, the current study shows that if the oats are not cleaned, and not cleaning oats is the normal storage practice, then B. bassiana could be used to help control sawtoothed grain beetles.
Real-time content adaptive contrast enhancement for see-through fog and rain

In this paper we present a novel algorithm for improving the visibility of surveillance videos degraded by fog and/or rain. The proposed algorithm adaptively enhances the global and local contrast of a surveillance video. The algorithm is inspired on the human visual system, and accounts for the perceptual sensitivity to noise, compression artifacts, and the texture of image content. The model is combined with the classic Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) method to adaptively enhance surveillance videos. We have implemented a real-time video enhancement system and performed extensive experimental testing over a video database containing common surveillance videos recorded under fog and rain conditions. The proposed approach significantly improves the visual quality of surveillance videos by removing fog/rain effects, as well as reducing noise and artifacts.
ETCHA Sketches: Lessons Learned from Collecting Sketch Data

We present ETCHA Sketches‐an Experimental Test Corpus of Hand Annotated Sketches‐with the goal of facilitating the development of a standard test corpus for sketch understanding research. To date we have collected sketches from four domains: circuit diagrams, family trees, floor plans and geometric configurations. We have also labeled many of the strokes in these data sets with geometric primitive labels (e.g., line, arc, polyline, polygon, and ellipse). We found accurate labeling of data to be a more complex task than may be anticipated. The complexity arises because labeled data can be used for different purposes with different requirements, and because some strokes are ambiguous and can legitimately be put into multiple categories. We discuss several different labeling methods and some properties of the sketches that became apparent from the process of collecting and labeling the data. The data sets are available online at http://rationale.csail. mit.edu/ETCHASketches.
Affective Computing and Sentiment Analysis: Emotion, Metaphor and Terminology

This volume maps the watershed areas between two 'holy grails' of computer science: the identification and interpretation of affect including sentiment and mood. The expression of sentiment and mood involves the use of metaphors, especially in emotive situations. Affect computing is rooted in hermeneutics, philosophy, political science and sociology, and is now a key area of research in computer science. The 24/7 news sites and blogs facilitate the expression and shaping of opinion locally and globally. Sentiment analysis, based on text and data mining, is being used in the looking at news and blogs for purposes as diverse as: brand management, film reviews, financial market analysis and prediction, homeland security. There are systems that learn how sentiments are articulated. This work draws on, and informs, research in fields as varied as artificial intelligence, especially reasoning and machine learning, corpus-based information extraction, linguistics, and psychology.
Optogenetic evocation of field inhibitory postsynaptic potentials in hippocampal slices: a simple and reliable approach for studying pharmacological effects on GABAA and GABAB receptor-mediated neurotransmission

The GABAergic system is the main source of inhibition in the mammalian brain. Consequently, much effort is still made to develop new modulators of GABAergic synaptic transmission. In contrast to glutamatergic postsynaptic potentials (PSPs), accurate monitoring of GABA receptor-mediated PSPs (GABAR-PSPs) and their pharmacological modulation in brain tissue invariably requires the use of intracellular recording techniques. However, these techniques are expensive, time- and labor-consuming, and, in case of the frequently employed whole-cell patch-clamp configuration, impact on intracellular ion concentrations, signaling cascades, and pH buffering systems. Here, we describe a novel approach to circumvent these drawbacks. In particular, we demonstrate in mouse hippocampal slices that selective optogenetic activation of interneurons leads to prominent field inhibitory GABAAR- and GABABR-PSPs in area CA1 which are easily and reliably detectable by a single extracellular recording electrode. The field PSPs exhibit typical temporal and pharmacological characteristics, display pronounced paired-pulse depression, and remain stable over many consecutive evocations. Additionally validating the methodological value of this approach, we further show that the neuroactive steroid 5α-THDOC (5 μM) shifts the inhibitory GABAAR-PSPs towards excitatory ones.
Análisis Comparativo De La Cultura Organizacional En Tres Empresas Autogestionadas En América Latina (Comparative Analysis of Organizational Culture in Three Self- Managed Firms in Latin America)

Spanish Abstract: El fenomeno de las empresas propiedad de sus trabajadores o autogestionadas se aborda en este trabajo a partir del estudio de caso en tres empresas ubicadas en Popayan, Colombia, y Rosario, Argentina. Se pretende obtener aprendizajes sobre la cultura organizacional en este modelo, a partir de la identificacion y analisis de elementos comunes y divergentes. Se realizaron entrevistas en las empresas definidas a traves de un grupo de variables asociadas a la cultura organizacional, como valores, participacion e historia fundacional, entre otras. Los principales hallazgos de esta investigacion estan orientados a que la cultura organizacional en estas empresas, a pesar de las diferencias de contexto, son bastante similares. Valores como la solidaridad, la responsabilidad, el compromiso y el trabajo en equipo, son comunes en las organizaciones, soportados en un suceso que obliga a reformular las expectativas de los individuos: el momento de crisis.English Abstract: Worker-owned companies or self-managed firms discussed here from three case study companies in Popayan, Colombia, and Rosario, Argentina. The aim is to learn about organizational culture in this model, from the identification and analysis of common and divergent elements. Interviews were conducted in companies defined through a set of variables associated with the organizational culture as values , participation, and founding history. The main findings shows that cultural organization of these companies despite the differences in context, are quite similar. Values such as solidarity, responsibility, commitment and teamwork, are common in organizations, supported on an event to reformulate the expectations of individuals: the moment of crisis.
Analysis of an importance sampling estimator for tandem queues

We analyze the performance of an importance sampling estimator for a rare-event probability in tandem Jackson networks. The rare event we consider corresponds to the network population reaching K before returning to ø, starting from ø, with K large. The estimator we study is based on interchanging the arrival rate and the smallest service rate and is therefore a generalization of the asymptotically optimal estimator for an M/M/1 queue. We examine its asymptotic performance for large K, showing that in certain parameter regions the estimator has an asymptotic efficiency property, but that in other regions it does not. The setting we consider is perhaps the simplest case of a rare-event simulation problem in which boundaries on the state space play a significant role.
Local science vs. global science : approaches to indigenous knowledge in international development

While science has achieved a remarkable understanding of nature, affording humans an astonishing technological capability, it has led, through Euro-American global domination, to the muting of other cultural views and values, even threatening their continued existence. There is a growing realization that the diversity of knowledge systems demand respect, some refer to them in a conservation idiom as alternative information banks. The scientific perspective is only one. We now have many examples of the soundness of local science and practices, some previously considered "primitive" and in need of change, but this book goes beyond demonstrating the soundness of local science and arguing for the incorporation of others' knowledge in development, to argue that we need to look quizzically at the foundations of science itself and further challenge its hegemony, not only over local communities in Africa, Asia, the Pacific or wherever, but also the global community. The issues are large and the challenges are exciting, as addressed in this book, in a range of ethnographic and institutional contexts. Paul Sillitoe is Professor of Anthropology, Durham University. His research interests focus on natural resources management, appropriate technology, and development. He specialises in social and environmental change, sustainable livelihoods, human ecology and ethno-science. He has long-standing interests in the Pacific, and more recently in South Asia. He seeks to further the incorporation of local knowledge in development, having experience with several international development agencies.
A Circularly Polarized Pattern Diversity Antenna for Hemispherical Coverage

In this communication, a circularly polarized (CP) antenna is proposed for satellite communication applications. The proposed antenna consists of two parts. One part is in-phase-fed folded monopoles with omnidirectional CP radiation pattern, and the other part is sequential-fed L-shaped monopoles with broadside CP radiation pattern. By combining the two parts as a pattern diversity antenna, upper hemispherical coverage with left-handed circular polarization (LHCP) is achieved in a small volume of 0. 38λ×0. 38λ×0. 071λ ( λ is the free-space wavelength). A prototype of the proposed antenna operating at 1.575 GHz has been built and tested. The measured overlapping bandwidth for both the two patterns with -10-dB impedance bandwidth and 3-dB axial-ratio (AR) is 6.7% (1.515-1.62 GHz), also with high port isolation. In addition, the AR and gain coverage over the upper hemisphere is discussed in detail.
The Effect of Intensive Glucose Lowering on Lipoprotein Particle Profiles and Inflammatory Markers in the Veterans Affairs Diabetes Trial (VADT)

OBJECTIVE Intensive glucose-lowering therapy (INT) did not reduce macrovascular events in the recent randomized trials, possibly because it did not improve or worsen other traditional or novel cardiovascular risk factors. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Standard plasma lipids, cholesterol content of lipoprotein subfractions, and plasma inflammatory and prothrombotic markers were determined in a subgroup of the Veterans Affairs Diabetes Trial (VADT) participants (n = 266) at baseline and after 9 months of INT or standard therapy. RESULTS INT lowered glycated hemoglobin (by a median of 2% vs. a median of 0.7% by standard treatment; P < 0.0001); increased BMI (4 vs. 1%; P < 0.001), total HDL (9 vs. 4%; P < 0.05), HDL2 (14 vs. 0%; P = 0.009), LDL2 (36 vs. 1%; P < 0.0001), and plasma adiponectin (130 vs. 80%; P < 0.01); and reduced triglycerides (−13 vs. −4%; P = 0.02) and small, dense LDL4 (−39 vs. −13%; P < 0.001), but had no effect on levels of plasma apolipoproteins B-100 and B-48, C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2, myeloperoxidase, fibrinogen, and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1. Incident macrovascular events were associated with baseline interleukin-6 (hazard ratio per each quartile increase 1.33 [95% CI 1.06–1.66]), total LDL (1.25 [1.01–1.55]), apolipoprotein B-100 (1.29 [1.01–1.65]), and fibrinogen (1.26 [1.01–1.57]) but not changes in any cardiovascular risk factors at 9 months. CONCLUSIONS INT was associated with improved adiponectin, lipid levels, and a favorable shift in LDL and HDL subfractions after 9 months. These data suggest that the failure of INT to lower cardiovascular outcomes occurred despite generally favorable changes in standard and novel risk factors early in the study.
Simvastatin Stimulates Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Production by Hypoxia-inducible Factor-1α Upregulation in Endothelial Cells

Objective: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent angiogenic factor and plays an important pathophysiological role in the maintenance of tissue structure as well as regeneration after ischemic injury. Three-hydroxy-3methylglutaryl-CoA reductase inhibitors reduce vascular inflammation and induce angiogenesis. This study examined whether simvastatin stimulates VEGF expression in endothelial cells as well as the nature of its underlying mechanism. Methods and Results: Simvastatin induced mRNA expression and protein secretion of VEGF in endothelial cells that were reversed by pretreatment with mevalonate and geranylgeranylpyrophosphate but not by farnesylpyrophosphate. Adenovirus-mediated expression of the dominant-negative mutant of RhoA induced VEGF mRNA and protein. Simvastatin increased hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) protein level without changing its mRNA expression. Inhibition of RhoA had similar effects to simvastatin on VEGF expression. Inhibition of RhoA caused the translocation of HIF-1α to the nuclear fraction. Depletion of HIF-1α by RNA interference blocked simvastatin-induced VEGF mRNA expression. Conclusions: Simvastatin stimulates VEGF expression by RhoA downregulation and HIF-1α upregulation in endothelial cells. These data indicate a novel role for RhoA as a negative regulator of HIF-1α.
A semantics-based method for clustering of Chinese web search results

Information explosion is a critical challenge to the development of modern information systems. In particular, when the application of an information system is over the Internet, the amount of information over the web has been increasing exponentially and rapidly. Search engines, such as Google and Baidu, are essential tools for people to find the information from the Internet. Valuable information, however, is still likely submerged in the ocean of search results from those tools. By clustering the results into different groups based on subjects automatically, a search engine with the clustering feature allows users to select most relevant results quickly. In this paper, we propose an online semantics-based method to cluster Chinese web search results. First, we employ the generalised suffix tree to extract the longest common substrings (LCSs) from search snippets. Second, we use the HowNet to calculate the similarities of the words derived from the LCSs, and extract the most representative features by constructing the vocabulary chain. Third, we construct a vector of text features and calculate snippets’ semantic similarities. Finally, we improve the Chameleon algorithm to cluster snippets. Extensive experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithm has outperformed over the suffix tree clustering method and other traditional clustering methods.
Noradrenergic neurons in the rat solitary nucleus participate in the esophageal-gastric relaxation reflex.

Activation of esophageal mechanosensors excites neurons in and near the central nucleus of the solitary tract (NSTc). In turn, NSTc neurons coordinate the relaxation of the stomach [i.e., the receptive relaxation reflex (RRR)] by modulating the output of vagal efferent neurons of the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus (DMN). The NSTc area contains neurons with diverse neurochemical phenotypes, including a large population of catecholaminergic and nitrergic neurons. The aim of the present study was to determine whether either one of these prominent neuronal phenotypes was involved in the RRR. Immunohistochemical techniques revealed that repetitive esophageal distension caused 53% of tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive (TH-ir) neurons to colocalize c-Fos in the NSTc. No nitric oxide synthase (NOS)-ir neurons in the NSTc colocalized c-Fos in either distension or control conditions. Local brain stem application (2 ng) of alpha-adrenoreceptor antagonists (i.e., alpha1-prazosin or alpha2-yohimbine) significantly reduced the magnitude of the esophageal distension-induced gastric relaxation to approximately 55% of control conditions. The combination of yohimbine and prazosin reduced the magnitude of the reflex to approximately 27% of control. In contrast, pretreatment with either the NOS-inhibitor NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester or the beta-adrenoceptor antagonist propranolol did not interfere with esophageal distension-induced gastric relaxation. Unilateral microinjections of the agonist norepinephrine (0.3 ng) directed at the DMN were sufficient to mimic the transient esophageal-gastric reflex. Our data suggest that noradrenergic, but not nitrergic, neurons of the NSTc play a prominent role in the modulation of the RRR through action on alpha1- and alpha2-adrenoreceptors. The finding that esophageal afferent stimulation alone is not sufficient to activate NOS-positive neurons in the NSTc suggests that these neurons may be strongly gated by other central nervous system inputs, perhaps related to the coordination of swallowing or emesis with respiration.
Staging of cervical cancer with soft computing

Describes a way of designing a hybrid decision support system in soft computing paradigm for detecting the different stages of cervical cancer. Hybridization includes the evolution of knowledge-based subnetwork modules with genetic algorithms (CIAs) using rough set theory and the Interactive Dichotomizer 3 (ID3) algorithm. Crude subnetworks obtained via rough set theory and the ID3 algorithm are evolved using CAs. The evolution uses a restricted mutation operator which utilizes the knowledge of the modular structure, already generated, for faster convergence. The CA tunes the network weights and structure simultaneously. The aforesaid integration enhances the performance in terms of classification score, network size and training time, as compared to the conventional multilayer perceptron. This methodology also helps in imposing a structure on the weights, which results in a network more suitable for extraction of logical rules and human interpretation of the inferencing procedure.