Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Randomized phase II trial of letrozole and letrozole plus low-dose metronomic oral cyclophosphamide as primary systemic treatment in elderly breast cancer patients.

PURPOSE To investigate the activity of letrozole plus/minus oral metronomic cyclophosphamide as primary systemic treatment (PST) in elderly breast cancer patients. METHODS One hundred fourteen consecutive elderly women with T2-4 N0-1 and estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer were randomly assigned to primary letrozole therapy (2.5 mg daily for 6 months) or a combination of letrozole plus oral cyclophosphamide (50 mg/daily for 6 months) in an open-labeled, randomized phase II trial. Tumor response was assessed clinically, and tumor Ki67 index and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) -A levels were measured before and after treatment. RESULTS Overall response rate was 71.9% (95% CI, 60.0 to 83.8) in the 57 patients randomly assigned to receive primary letrozole and 87.7% (95% CI, 78.6 to 96.2) in the 57 patients randomly assigned to receive letrozole plus cyclophosphamide. The difference in activity between treatment arms was predominantly confined to patients with ductal histology. There was a significantly greater suppression of Ki67 and VEGF-A expression in the letrozole/cyclophosphamide-treated group than in the letrozole-treated group, leading to lower Ki67 and VEGF expression at post-treatment residual histology (P = .03 and P = .002, respectively). CONCLUSION Both letrozole and letrozole plus cyclophosphamide treatments appeared active as PST in elderly breast cancer patients. Metronomic scheduling of cyclophosphamide may have an antiangiogenic effect and the combination of letrozole plus cyclophosphamide warrants testing in a randomized phase III trial.
An intelligent system for information retrieval over the internet through spoken dialogue

For the purpose of coping with the affluence of information available over the Internet, an efficient, accurate and user-friendly system for information retrieval is mandatory. This paper presents an intelligent system based on the use of spoken dialogue as the main channel for usersystem interface, use of key concepts, processing of unknown words, automatic acquisition of various kinds of knowledge for improving the performance, and agent technologies for system realization. Details of functions required for the agents are also described.
Cultural Industries: Product–Market Characteristics, Management Challenges and Industry Dynamics

During the last decade, cultural industries have grown in economic importance, and research interest in them has increased. Despite prolific research, there is a lack of a comprehensive view on the subject. The purpose of the present paper is to offer a reconceptualization of cultural industries by tracing their boundaries, their features and the dynamics that follow from these features. This is achieved through a review of 314 cultural industries studies, whereby a classification system of three main and six sub-categories is constructed. On the basis of the review, a framework for future research is presented. Most importantly, future research should examine selection criteria and selection performance, and explore the relationships between tastes, sales, diversity and quality. In this way, researchers might be able to create some order in the extreme uncertainty that cultural industries managers face.
Configurable CRC Generator

In order to provide error detection in communication networks a method called Cyclic Redundancy Check has been used for almost 40 years. This algorithm is widely used in computer networks of today and will continue to be so in the future. The implementation methods has on the other hand been constantly changing. A novel architecture suitable for use as accelerating hardware in an protocol processor has been implemented and manufactured. It provides both high throughput and configurability for different protocols when used in a network terminal. Since the computation of the CRC is one of the most computational extensive operations performed by a network terminal the use of the accelerator presented here would reduce the workload of a host processor significantly.
Image Processing Techniques and Smart Image Manipulation : Texture Synthesis

Textures - repeatable spatial or temporal patterns - provide a useful mechanism for reusing small samples of text, images, audio, video, or some other media to generate new samples. Generating repeatable and generalizable textures from raw samples presents an interesting set of challenges in computer graphics. This lecture provides some background for the discussion of textures and texture synthesis and then presents several pieces of pioneering work in synthesizing static image textures and video textures.
Character strengths in Israel: Hebrew adaptation of the VIA Inventory of Strengths.

The Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) has been extensively used to assess character strengths. We adapted a Hebrew translation and analyzed its psychometric properties and associations with life satisfaction, personality traits, and positive and negative affect, and examined its factorial structure in 635 Israeli adults. Results indicated the following: (1) All 24 subscales had satisfactory reliabilities (αs > .72). (2) Hope, gratitude, vitality, curiosity, and love had the highest associations with life satisfaction, whereas modesty, appreciation of beauty, fairness, humor and honesty, had the lowest. (3) Women scored higher than men on love, appreciation of beauty and gratitude, with men scoring higher on creativity. (4) A five-dimensional model best represented the factorial structure. Most findings replicated previous findings in other countries, supporting the use of the Hebrew version.
Physical and Genetic Map of the Obligate Intracellular Bacterium Coxiella burnetii

ABSTRACT Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and PCR techniques have been used to construct a NotI macrorestriction map of the obligate intracellular bacterium Coxiella burnetii Nine Mile. The size of the chromosome has been determined to be 2,103 kb comprising 29NotI restriction fragments. The average resolution is 72.5 kb, or about 3.5% of the genome. Experimental data support the presence of a linear chromosome. Published genes were localized on the physical map by Southern hybridization. One gene, recognized as transposable element, was found to be present in at least nine sites evenly distributed over the whole chromosome. There is only one copy of a 16S rRNA gene. The putative oriC has been located on a 27.5-kb NotI fragment. Gene organization upstream theoriC is almost identical to that of Pseudomonas putida and Bacillus subtilis, whereas gene organization downstream the oriC seems to be unique among bacteria. The physical map will be helpful in investigations of the great heterogeneity in restriction fragment length polymorphism patterns of different isolates and the great variation in genome size. The genetic map will help to determine whether gene order in different isolates is conserved.
A novel function of RIP1 in postnatal development and immune homeostasis by protecting against RIP3-dependent necroptosis and FADD-mediated apoptosis

RIP1 is an adaptor kinase originally identified as being able to associate with TNFR1 and Fas, and is later shown to be involved in signaling induced by TLRs. Major signaling pathways regulated by RIP1 include necroptosis, apoptosis, and pro-survival/inflammation NF-κB activation. Previous studies show that RIP1 deficiency has no effect on mouse embryogenesis, but blocks postnatal development. This phenotype could not readily be explained, since mice lacking TNFR1, Fas, or TLRs show no apparent developmental defect. Certain types of RIP1-deficient cells are hypersensitive to TNF-induced apoptosis. However, in our previous study, deletion of the apoptotic adaptor protein, FADD, provides marginal improvement of postnatal development of rip1−/− mice. Remarkably, the current data shows that haploid insufficiency of RIP3, a known mediator of necroptosis, allowed survival of rip1−/−fadd−/− mice beyond weaning age, although the resulting rip1−/−fadd−/− rip3+/− mice were significant smaller in size and weight. Moreover, complete absence of RIP3 further improved postnatal development of the resulting rip1−/−fadd−/−rip3−/− mice, which display normal size and weight. In such triple knockout (TKO) mice, lymphocytes underwent normal development, but progressively accumulated as mice age. This lymphoproliferative (lpr) disease in TKO mice is, however, less severe than that of fadd−/−rip3−/− double knockout mice. In total, the data show that the postnatal developmental defect in rip1−/− mice is due in part to FADD-mediated apoptosis as well as RIP3-dependent necroptosis. Moreover, the function of RIP1 contributes to development of lpr diseases.
Flavobacterium soyangense sp. nov., a psychrotolerant bacterium, isolated from an oligotrophic freshwater lake.

A bacterial strain, designated IMCC26223T, was isolated from an oligotrophic freshwater lake, Lake Soyang, Korea. Cells of strain IMCC26223T were Gram-staining negative, strictly aerobic, non-motile and short-rod-shaped. Growth occurred at pH 6-8 (optimum, pH 7.0), at 4-25 °C (optimum, 15 °C) and with 0-0.5 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 0 %). Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain IMCC26223T was identified as a member of the genus Flavobacterium and most closely related to Flavobacterium fluvii H7T (97.6 %), Flavobacterium segetis AT1048T (97.5 %) and Flavobacterium weaverense AT1042T (97.2 %). DNA-DNA relatedness between strain IMCC26223T and F. fluvii H7T was 41.5-51.7 % in the reciprocal hybridization. Strain IMCC26223T contained MK-6 as the major respiratory quinone. The major cellular fatty acids consisted of C16 : 0, iso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C15 : 0 and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω6c and/or C16 : 1ω7c), and the polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, an unidentified aminolipid and two unidentified lipids. The DNA G+C content of strain IMCC26223T was 34.5 mol%. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene phylogeny and phenotypic characterization, strain IMCC26223T represents a novel species of the genus Flavobacterium, for which the name Flavobacterium soyangense sp. nov., is proposed. The type strain is IMCC26223T (=KCTC 52245T=JCM 31384T).
Validity of a new method to estimate mean arterial pressure at brachial level

The value of mean arterial pressure (MBP) is of clinical importance, and is required for peripheral resistance calculation as well as for central blood pressure calibration procedures. MBP is usually estimated at the upper arm using systolic and diastolic sphygmomanometers pressure values, as 33% of pulse pressure (PP) above diastolic pressure. In a previous work, we proposed to use 38%. The aim of this study was to investigate the validity of the proposed formula to calculate MBP, when assessing subjects with a wide range of blood pressure and pulse wave velocity (PWV) levels. In 73 volunteers (56±10 years, range: 27–82; pulse pressure: 59±12 mmHg, range: 43–86; PWV: 10±2 m/s, range: 8–17) arterial pressure waveforms were obtained at the left brachial artery by applanation tonometry. Diastolic (DBP) and systolic (SBP) brachial pressure were obtained with oscillometric device. Brachial-radial PWV was obtained at the same arm using mechano-transducers. MBP computed as 38% of PP above diastolic pressure, introduces an error of only 0.1% in brachial MBP estimation, independent of pressure and PWV levels.
The Smith–Lemli–Opitz syndrome: a novel metabolic way of understanding developmental biology, embryogenesis, and dysmorphology

The brief history of the Smith–Lemli–Opitz syndrome (SLOS) (MIM 270400) reflects that of latter 20th century dysmorphology and biochemical and molecular genetics: from its first description as a rare but characteristic multiple malformation syndrome known only to a handful of dysmorphologists, to a relatively common Garrodian defect with a complex molecular basis that has captured the attention of researchers and basic scientists from the fields as diverse as embryology, developmental biology, sterol biochemistry, epidemiology, and teratology. The discovery of the underlying biochemical defect – deficiency of 3β‐hydroxysteroid‐Δ7‐reductase (DHCR7), an enzyme catalyzing the last step of cholesterol biosynthesis, and the resultant generalized cholesterol deficiency – has led to an explosion of knowledge of this biochemical pathway and to a paradigm shift in the recognition of metabolic deficiencies as causes of dysmorphic syndromes. Characterization of the human DHCR7 gene and the identification of mutations in patients with SLOS have revealed a complex picture of molecular heterogeneity and provided insights into the structure and function of DHCR7. SLOS is the first metabolic malformation syndrome with profound effects on the body plan, and its discovery has paved the way to the discovery of a number of other defects of the cholesterol synthetic pathway.
On handling fixed blocks in incremental fixed-outline floorplanning

Unlike classical floorplanning that usually only handles block packing to minimize silicon area, modern VLSI floorplanning typically needs to pack blocks within a fixed die(outline) with various user defined constraints. Many algorithms of floorplanning now are with fixed-outline constraint, and these algorithms handle this constraint in the process of stochastic iterative optimization. But the process not only costs too much run time but also is really hard to converge when additional constrains are included. To meet the incremental design requirements, an algorithm to handle fixed-blocks constraints based on given fixed-outline packing with post process is proposed in this paper. By adjusting critical path iteratively in graph of TCG, the violated fixed-outline constraints can be fixed. At the same time, virtual nodes are added into TCG for the constrained blocks with fixed positions so that both fixed-outline constraints and fixed-blocks constraints can be satisfied during the incremental process. Experimental results on MCNC benchmarks show that our algorithm can fix all the violations effectively that for ami49 with 49 blocks, it only takes less than 0.3s to handle the fixed-outline constraints. The degradation on area and wirelength are controlled to about 1.3% and 19.5% respectively.
Design of Flower Constellations for Telecommunication Services

Satellite constellation designers take into consideration the entire telecommunication network and their design choices are influenced by many factors including: number of satellites, orbital characteristics, coverage area, network interconnections, system cost, and complexity. When the satellite constellation design method does not include a large number of possible configurations, then the final result of the design process is a suboptimal solution. Flower Constellation (FC) design provides a relatively new design approach which can overcome this problem. The time evolution of the FC theory is here summarized and the fundamental mathematics allowing the constellation design is provided. In particular, the theory is applied to the design and optimization of constellations maximizing the global coverage and the network connectivity via intersatellite links. Performance results are compared to the classical type of satellite constellations, i.e., the Walker Constellations. The performance improvement provided by FC design with respect to Walker Constellation design is shown. Finally, considerations regarding the cost for deployment and orbital control are also provided.
Is Music Therapy Effective in Improving the Quality of Life in Dementia Patients

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this selective EBM review is to determine whether or not music therapy is effective in improving the quality of life in dementia patients. STUDY DESIGN: Review of three English language primary studies published between 1996 and present. DATA SOURCES: Randomized, controlled clinical trials (RCTs) analyzing music therapy and dementia were found using PubMed and OVID. OUTCOMES MEASURED: The main outcome measured was quality of life, which included depression, anxiety and cognitive change. RESULTS: Music therapy resulted in several beneficial effects for dementia patients including improvements in self-esteem, depressive symptoms, anxiety, depression, and cognitive change. Participants who attended ≥50% of live music therapy sessions in the Cooke et al study experienced improvement in self-esteem over time. Fewer depressive symptoms were reported in dementia patients, especially if they had attended music sessions. In the Guetin et al study, both anxiety and depression were significantly reduced in participants completing between four and sixteen weeks of receptive music therapy (p<0.01). These effects persisted for 8 weeks after cessation of intervention. When group music therapy was employed in the Bruer et al study, cognitive improvements were found in dementia-diagnosed subjects immediately following therapy (+2.00 points) and one day post intervention (+3.69 points) as evident by increased scores on the Mini Mental State Exam. One week post-intervention, no significant cognitive improvements remained. CONCLUSIONS: The results of these three clinical trials show that the use of music therapy can be effective in improving quality of life in some dementia patients. The implementation of music therapy into the lives of dementia patients may result in decreased levels of anxiety and depression, higher self-esteem, and increased levels of cognition up to one day after therapy. Although the data on the persisting effects of music therapy is variable, there is potential for music therapy to have effects on anxiety and depression for up to eight weeks following intervention.
Kernel Density Estimation, Affinity-Based Clustering, And Typical Cuts

The typical cut is a clustering method that is based on the probability pnm that points xn and xm are in the same cluster over all possible partitions (under the Boltzmann distribution for the mincut cost function). We present two contributions regarding this algorithm. (1) We show that, given a kernel density estimate of the data, minimising the overlap between cluster densities is equivalent to the mincut criterion. This gives a principled way to determine what affinities and scales to use in the typical-cut algorithm, and more generally in clustering and dimensionality reduction algorithms based on pairwise affinities. (2) We introduce an iterated version of the typical-cut algorithm, where the estimated pnm are used to refine the affinities. We show this procedure is equivalent to finding stationary points of a certain objective function over clusterings; and that at the stationary points the value of pnm is 1 if n and m are in the same cluster and a small value otherwise. Thus, the iterated typical-cut algorithm sharpens the pnm matrix and makes the cluster structure more obvious
A New Discriminative Sparse Representation Method for Robust Face Recognition via $l_{2}$ Regularization

Sparse representation has shown an attractive performance in a number of applications. However, the available sparse representation methods still suffer from some problems, and it is necessary to design more efficient methods. Particularly, to design a computationally inexpensive, easily solvable, and robust sparse representation method is a significant task. In this paper, we explore the issue of designing the simple, robust, and powerfully efficient sparse representation methods for image classification. The contributions of this paper are as follows. First, a novel discriminative sparse representation method is proposed and its noticeable performance in image classification is demonstrated by the experimental results. More importantly, the proposed method outperforms the existing state-of-the-art sparse representation methods. Second, the proposed method is not only very computationally efficient but also has an intuitive and easily understandable idea. It exploits a simple algorithm to obtain a closed-form solution and discriminative representation of the test sample. Third, the feasibility, computational efficiency, and remarkable classification accuracy of the proposed $l_{2}$ regularization-based representation are comprehensively shown by extensive experiments and analysis. The code of the proposed method is available at http://www.yongxu. org/lunwen.html.
Barley Cbf3 Gene Identification, Expression Pattern, and Map Location1

Although cold and drought adaptation in cereals and other plants involve the induction of a large number of genes, inheritance studies in Triticeae (wheat [Triticum aestivum], barley [Hordeum vulgare], and rye [Secale cereale]) have revealed only a few major loci for frost or drought tolerance that are consistent across multiple genetic backgrounds and environments. One might imagine that these loci could encode highly conserved regulatory factors that have global effects on gene expression; therefore, genes encoding central regulators identified in other plants might be orthologs of these Triticeae stress tolerance genes. The CBF/DREB1 regulators, identified originally in Arabidopsis as key components of cold and drought regulation, merit this consideration. We constructed barley cDNA libraries, screened these libraries and a barley bacterial artificial chromosome library using rice (Oryza sativa) and barley Cbf probes, found orthologs of ArabidopsisCBF/DREB1 genes, and examined the expression and genetic map location of the barley Cbf3 gene,HvCbf3. HvCbf3 was induced by a chilling treatment. HvCbf3 is located on barley chromosome 5H between markers WG364b and saflp58 on the barley cv Dicktoo × barley cv Morex genetic linkage map. This position is some 40 to 50 cM proximal to the winter hardiness quantitative trait locus that includes the Vrn-1H gene, but may coincide with the wheat 5A Rcg1 locus, which governs the threshold temperature at which cor genes are induced. From this, it remains possible that HvCbf3 is the basis of a minor quantitative trait locus in some genetic backgrounds, though that possibility remains to be thoroughly explored.
DO VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES HARM CHILDREN ? COMPARING THE SCIENTIFIC AMICUS CURIAE ― EXPERTS ‖ IN BROWN V . ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION

INTRODUCTION In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass’n, video game merchants present a First Amendment challenge to a California law regulating sales of certain violent video games to children less than eighteen years of age. A primary issue presented to the Supreme Court is whether California‘s interest in protecting children from serious psychological or neurological harm is sufficiently compelling to overcome First Amendment scrutiny. This Essay briefly summarizes the California law and the Ninth Circuit‘s opinion, which held that the law violates the First Amendment and questioned the strength of the scientific evidence used to support the claim of harm to minors. This Essay then compares amicus curiae scientific experts on both sides of the case and presents an original quantitative analysis of the experts‘ relevant expertise in the psychological effects of violence and media effects based on the briefs‘ authors‘ and signatories‘ published scholarship. This Essay concludes that if the Supreme Court relies on scientific evidence