Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Natural history and surgical management of incidentally discovered low-grade gliomas.

OBJECT Low-grade gliomas (LGGs) are rarely diagnosed as an incidental, asymptomatic finding, and it is not known how the early surgical management of these tumors might affect outcome. The purpose of this study was to compare the outcomes of patients with incidental and symptomatic LGGs and determine any prognostic factors associated with those outcomes. METHODS All patients treated by the lead author for an LGG incidentally discovered between 1999 and 2010 were retrospectively reviewed. "Incidental" was defined as a finding on imaging that was obtained for a reason not attributable to the glioma, such as trauma or headache. Primary outcomes included overall survival, progression-free survival (PFS), and malignant PFS. Patients with incidental LGGs were compared with a previously reported cohort of patients with symptomatic gliomas. RESULTS Thirty-five patients with incidental LGGs were identified. The most common reasons for head imaging were headache not associated with mass effect (31.4%) and trauma (20%). Patients with incidental lesions had significantly lower preoperative tumor volumes than those with symptomatic lesions (20.2 vs 53.9 cm(3), p < 0.001), were less likely to have tumors in eloquent locations (14.3% vs 61.9%, p < 0.001), and had a higher prevalence of females (57.1% vs 36%, p = 0.02). In addition, patients with incidental lesions were also more likely to undergo gross-total resection (60% vs 31.5%, p = 0.001) and had improved overall survival on Kaplan-Meier analysis (p = 0.039, Mantel-Cox test). Progression and malignant progression rates did not differ between the 2 groups. Univariate analysis identified pre- and postoperative volumes as well as the use of motor or language mapping as significant prognostic factors for PFS. CONCLUSIONS In this retrospective cohort of surgically managed LGGs, incidentally discovered lesions were associated with improved patient survival as compared with symptomatic LGGs, with acceptable surgical risks.
Restrictions on Medicaid Funding for Abortions : A Literature Review

n The Hyde Amendment bans the use of federal Medicaid funds for abortions except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest. In addition, as of 2008, 32 states and the District of Columbia had prohibited the use of their state Medicaid funds for abortions except in the limited cases allowed under the Amendment.
Creating Virtual Touch: Theoretical Framework and Research Agenda

Disclosed is an AM stereo receiver capable of receiving signals representing at least two different types of AM stereo systems, but using an integrated circuit (IC) decoder designed to properly decode received signals representing only one of the two types of systems. The receiver includes circuitry coupled to the IC which adapts the IC for also properly decoding received signals representing the second type of AM stereo system as well. Circuitry is also disclosed for automatically detecting which type of AM stereo system is being received and for configuring the receiver's decoding circuits to properly decode the received stereo signals.
Comparison of three vertically resolved ozone data sets: climatology, trends and radiative forcings

Abstract. Climate models that do not simulate changes in stratospheric ozone concentrations require the prescription of ozone fields to accurately calculate UV fluxes and stratospheric heating rates. In this study, three different global ozone time series that are available for this purpose are compared: the data set of Randel and Wu (2007) (RW07), Cionni et al. (2011) (SPARC), and Bodeker et al. (2013) (BDBP). All three data sets represent multiple-linear regression fits to vertically resolved ozone observations, resulting in a spatially and temporally continuous stratospheric ozone field covering at least the period from 1979 to 2005. The main differences among the data sets result from regression models, which use different observations and include different basis functions. The data sets are compared against ozonesonde and satellite observations to assess how the data sets represent concentrations, trends and interannual variability. In the Southern Hemisphere polar region, RW07 and SPARC underestimate the ozone depletion in spring ozonesonde measurements. A piecewise linear trend regression is performed to estimate the 1979–1996 ozone decrease globally, covering a period of extreme depletion in most regions. BDBP overestimates Arctic and tropical ozone depletion over this period relative to the available measurements, whereas the depletion is underestimated in RW07 and SPARC. While the three data sets yield ozone concentrations that are within a range of different observations, there is a large spread in their respective ozone trends. One consequence of this is differences of almost a factor of four in the calculated stratospheric ozone radiative forcing between the data sets (RW07: −0.038 Wm −2 , SPARC: −0.033 Wm −2 , BDBP: −0.119 Wm −2 ), important in assessing the contribution of stratospheric ozone depletion to the total anthropogenic radiative forcing.
Quantifying Urban Traffic Anomalies

Detecting and quantifying anomalies in urban traffic is critical for real-time alerting or re-routing in the short run and urban planning in the long run. We describe a two-step framework that achieves these two goals in a robust, fast, online, and unsupervised manner. First, we adapt stable principal component pursuit to detect anomalies for each road segment. This allows us to pinpoint traffic anomalies early and precisely in space. Then we group the road-level anomalies across time and space into meaningful anomaly events using a simple graph expansion procedure. These events can be easily clustered, visualized, and analyzed by urban planners. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system using 7 weeks of anonymized and aggregated cellular location data in Dallas-Fort Worth. We suggest potential opportunities for urban planners and policy makers to use our methodology to make informed changes. These applications include real-time re-routing of traffic in response to abnormally high traffic, or identifying candidates for high-impact infrastructure projects.
Miniature electrocardiography sensor using a flexible printed circuit and MEMS technology

This paper presents the development of flexible electrocardiography (ECG) sensors using both a flexible printed circuit (FPCB) and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. By using FPCB technology, polymer-based ECG sensors of a bipolar Laplacian-type electrode were fabricated and their ECG measurement capability was examined by both implanting the proposed sensors into subcutaneous fat and attaching the sensor to the skin of a dog. The bipolar ECG sensors, at three different sensing electrode diameters (4, 2 and 1 mm), were then miniaturized using MEMS technology. The MEMS ECG sensors had a hook-shaped sensing electrode and a reference electrode. One MEMS ECG sensor was attached to human skin. The ECG of a human was measured at one point using both a commercial patch-type ECG electrode and the proposed MEMS ECG sensor. Performance of the measured ECG by the MEMS ECG sensor was then compared with ECG measured by the commercially available ECG electrode. The correlation factor, which indicates the similarity in magnitude and wave patterns of the two measured ECGs, was 0.977, 0.86, 0.85 for 4, 2, and 1 mm respectively. Although the correlation factor decreases with decreasing sensing electrode diameter, we have demonstrated that ECG could be measured using a quasi-single-electrode sensor at just one point.
Rethinking integration and identity: Chinese migrants in the Republic of Ireland

ABSTRACT Using historical narratives and a qualitative research approach, this paper analyses the social, cultural and cognitive causes of differentiation and stratification among Chinese migrants in the Republic of Ireland. It discusses individuals’ diversified capabilities, attitudes and actual levels of integration, as well as their disparate patterns of self-identification. In the research area of Chinese migrants in Ireland, in-group diversity and its implications is still a novel research topic. With this introductory work, the authors seek to draw more attention to this particular group, especially to the need for studies of encounters between subgroups and longitudinal investigations. The paper points out that subgroups of Chinese migrants in Ireland are divided according to social classification and self-categorisation, which have distinct significances for subgroup members’ integration and identity.
The Understanding of the Plant Iron Deficiency Responses in Strategy I Plants and the Role of Ethylene in This Process by Omic Approaches

Iron (Fe) is an essential plant micronutrient but is toxic in excess. Fe deficiency chlorosis is a major constraint for plant growth and causes severe losses of crop yields and quality. Under Fe deficiency conditions, plants have developed sophisticated mechanisms to keep cellular Fe homeostasis via various physiological, morphological, metabolic, and gene expression changes to facilitate the availability of Fe. Ethylene has been found to be involved in the Fe deficiency responses of plants through pharmacological studies or by the use of ethylene mutants. However, how ethylene is involved in the regulations of Fe starvation responses remains not fully understood. Over the past decade, omics approaches, mainly focusing on the RNA and protein levels, have been used extensively to investigate global gene expression changes under Fe-limiting conditions, and thousands of genes have been found to be regulated by Fe status. Similarly, proteome profiles have uncovered several hallmark processes that help plants adapt to Fe shortage. To find out how ethylene participates in the Fe deficiency response and explore putatively novel regulators for further investigation, this review emphasizes the integration of those genes and proteins, derived from omics approaches, regulated both by Fe deficiency, and ethylene into a systemic network by gene co-expression analysis.
Enhanced support region for scale-space blob detection

This paper presents a new criterion for blob detection applied in the framework of scale-space based segmentation of objects from digital medical images. The proposed method is based on fitting the blob to a standard shape, such as the Gaussian, subject to constraints based on the blob support area or the total variation. The method has been verified and compared with the conventional procedures using a variety of synthetic images as well as the real images used in medical diagnostics. The examples include detection of abnormalities in digital retinal images and microscope cell imagery.
Physics-based analysis of variable RF MEMS capacitors

The aim of the paper is to design MEMS variable capacitor using a physics-based simulation approach where DC, stress and high frequency analyses are performed on the same geometric model using a commercial software tool. The design targets a very large capacitor tuning range. This is achieved by using a multi-finger parallel-plate structure that has two electrodes: one stationary and one suspended by a mechanical spring so that it moves by the effect of an applied force. Capacitance, actuation voltage and electrostatic forces as well as tuning range and RF frequency response are determined using a single software interface and coupled multi-physics analyses. As this is a large structure, the effect of deformation with motion could be only captured with the numerical analysis technique used which allows full 3-dimensional simulations without compromising the geometrical details. The resulting final design is submitted for fabrication through CMC and will be tested electrically.
Driver assistance through an autonomous safety management framework

The increasing need for mobility has revealed inefficiencies related to transportation, such as congestion, accidents and environmental pollution. An innovative solution to achieve more efficient and safer mobility is to attribute to vehicles embedded intelligence functionality. This paper introduces a framework for providing intelligence to vehicles. The framework operates by collecting contextual, profile, and policy information from the surrounding vehicles, traffic lights and road signs, processes it intelligently, integrating knowledge and experience, and visually informs the driver proactively for forthcoming emergencies, based on a set of warning functions. In order to reach the required driver-assisting decisions, a heuristic algorithm is used, based on rules-of-thumb. Extensive simulation results showcase the algorithm's advantages compared to current ADAS solutions in terms of response times, simplicity and scalability, since it acts proactively thus reducing response times, while it utilizes existing 3G/4G/5G infrastructures.
Paraphrasing Adaptation for Web Search Ranking

Mismatch between queries and documents is a key issue for the web search task. In order to narrow down such mismatch, in this paper, we present an in-depth investigation on adapting a paraphrasing technique to web search from three aspects: a search-oriented paraphrasing model; an NDCG-based parameter optimization algorithm; an enhanced ranking model leveraging augmented features computed on paraphrases of original queries. Experiments performed on the large scale query-document data set show that, the search performance can be significantly improved, with +3.28% and +1.14% NDCG gains on dev and test sets respectively.
Watt-Lite: energy statistics made tangible

Increasing our knowledge of how design affects behaviour in the workplace has a large potential for reducing electricity consumption. This would be beneficial for the environment as well as for industry and society at large. In Western society energy use is hidden and for the great mass of consumers its consequences are poorly understood. In order to better understand how we can use design to increase awareness of electricity consumption in everyday life, we will discuss the design of Watt-Lite, a set of three oversized torches projecting real time energy statistics of a factory in the physical environments of its employees. The design of Watt-Lite is meant to explore ways of representing, understanding and interacting with electricity in industrial workspaces. We discuss three design inquiries and their implications for the design of Watt-Lite: the use of tangible statistics; exploratory interaction and transferred connotations.
Comparative Analysis of Volatile Memory Forensics: Live Response vs. Memory Imaging

Traditionally, incident responders and digital forensic examiners have predominantly relied on live response for volatile data acquisition. While this approach is popular, memory capacity has rapidly changed, making memory a valuable resource for digital investigation, by revealing not only running tasks, but also terminated and cached processes. This research presents the impact and the limitations of the conventional volatile forensic method, live response, in comparison to the alternative method, memory image analysis. The experiment's results demonstrate and we discuss the forensic effects of executing a live response toolkit, which alters the volatile data environment significantly in some cases and can overwrite potential evidence. Memory image analysis is also leveraged as an alternative approach that helps mitigate the risk of losing volatile evidence such as terminated and cashed processes, which are ignored during live response. This comparative analysis calls attention the capabilities of both methods in retrieving and recovering volatile data.
Design of One Bit Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) in QCA

–Quantum cellular automata (QCA) is a new technology in nanometre scale as one of the alternative to nano technology. QCA technology has large potential in terms of high space density and power dissipation with the development of the faster computer with low power consumption. We describe the design and layout of a simple 1-bit ALU based on quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) using the QCADesigner design tool. The ALU design is based on combinational circuits which reduces the required hard-ware complexity and allows for reasonable simulation times. Our aim is to provide evidence that QCA has potential applications in future computers provided that the underlying technology is made feasible. We have design certain combinational circuit by using Majority gate, AND, OR, NOT, X-OR in QCA. In the combinational circuits, we have design Logical Extender, Arithmetic Extender and Full Adder are major blocks of one bit ALU.
Optimising Assessments of the Epidemiological Impact in the Netherlands of Paediatric Immunisation with 13-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine Using Dynamic Transmission Modelling

This work is the first attempt to quantify the overall effects of a 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) vaccination programme in the Dutch population taking into account all the direct and indirect effects of the vaccine on invasive pneumococcal disease. Using available Dutch data, a dynamic transmission model for the spread of pneumococci and potential subsequent invasive pneumococcal disease has been adapted to the Dutch setting. Overall, invasive pneumococcal disease cases in the Netherlands are predicted to decrease from a pre-vaccination level of 2623 cases annually to 2475, 2289, 2185, 2179, and 2178 cases annually 5-, 10-, 20-, 30-, and 40-years, respectively, post-vaccination. Therefore, vaccination with PCV13 in the Netherlands is predicted to lower invasive pneumococcal disease cases per year by up to 445 cases in the medium- to long-term. The results are quite robust for the sensitivity analyses performed on the parameters that regulate herd immunity and competition between vaccine and non-vaccine types.
Where Are the High-Velocity Clouds?

Recent observations of high-velocity clouds (HVCs) have revealed compression fronts and tail-shaped features of H I, suggesting that they are interacting with an external medium. We perform three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of HVCs moving through a diffuse hot gaseous component, investigating the behavior of both extragalactic dark matter-dominated HVCs and nearby pure gas clouds that may be accreting onto the Galactic disk via a Galactic fountain. Both scenarios can give rise to similar features as observed if the external medium has a density greater than 10-4 cm-3. Observations suggest that this may be too high for a hot ionized halo or intergalactic gas and supports the Galactic fountain origin, a model that can also account for the high fraction of HVCs with tails and asymmetrical morphologies.
A ray-slice-sweep volume rendering engine

Ray-slice-sweeping is a plane sweep algorithm for volume rendering, The compositing buffer sweeps through the volume and combines the accumulated image with the new slice of just-projected voxels. The image combination is guided by sight rays from the view point through every voxel of the new slice. Cube-. #L is a volume rendering architecture which employs a ray-slice-sweeping algorithm. It improves the Cube-4 architecture in three ways. First, during perspective projection all voxels of the dataset contribute to the rendering. Second, it computes gradients at the voxel positions which improves accuracy and allows a more compact implementation, Third, Cube-AL has less control overhead than Cube-C
Affective Judgments, Common Sense, Thesis of Independence 1

Zajonc (1980) argued that, contrary to what is commonly believed, an affective judgment about a stimulus may be independent of the cognitive processes through which we know what that stimulus is. The evidence Zajonc offered (the exposure effect in the absence of recognition) does not entail this claim. An example of the sort of experiment that could do so is offered. When carried out, however, this study indicated the opposite: An affective judgment about a stimulus depended on how it was cognitively interpreted. We argue that what is commonly believed in this area is presumptively correct: A ffective judgments about a stimulus depend on whatever information is possessed about that stimulus.
An improved joint dictionary training method for single image super resolution

Research on image statistics suggests that image patches can be well represented as a sparse linear combination of elements from an appropriately over-complete dictionary. In this paper, an improved joint dictionary training scheme is introduced for the single image super resolution. By using different weight factors, the scheme balances two dictionaries in the high- and low- resolution spaces in the training to achieve good reconstructed images. A K-SVD algorithm is applied to learn the dictionaries. Sparse representations of low-resolution image patches are used to reconstruct the high-resolution image patches. From the experiment results, the proposed scheme outperforms the classic bicubic interpolation and neighbor embedding learning based method both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Multi-resolution stereo matching using genetic algorithm

In this paper, a new genetic-based stereo matching algorithm is presented. Our motivation is to improve the accuracy of the disparity map generated by removing the mismatches caused by both occlusions and false targets. In our approach, the stereo matching problem is considered as an optimization problem. The algorithm first takes advantage of multi-view stereo images to detect occlusions, therefore, removes mismatches caused by visibility problems. A genetic algorithm is then used to optimize both the compatibility between corresponding points and the continuity of the disparity map, which removes mismatches caused false targets. In addition, the quadtree structure is used to implement a multiresolution framework. Since nodes at different level of the quadtree cover different number of pixels, selecting nodes at different levels gives similar effect as adjusting the window size at different locations of the image. The experimental results show that our approach can generate more accurate disparity maps than two existing approaches.