Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Renal Function and All-Cause Mortality Risk Among Cancer Patients

Abstract Renal dysfunction predicts all-cause mortality in general population. However, the prevalence of renal insufficiency and its relationship with mortality in cancer patients are unclear. We retrospectively studied 9465 patients with newly diagnosed cancer from January 2010 to December 2010. Renal insufficiency was defined as an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) <60 mL/min/1.73 m2 using the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration equation. The hazard ratio (HR) of all-cause mortality associated with baseline eGFR was assessed by Cox regression. Three thousand sixty-nine patients (32.4%) exhibited eGFR <90 mL/min/1.73 m2 and 3% had abnormal serum creatinine levels at the time of diagnosis. Over a median follow-up of 40.5 months, 2705 patients (28.6%) died. Compared with the reference group (eGFR ≥ 60 mL/min/1.73 m2), an elevated all-cause mortality was observed among patients with eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 stratified by cancer stage in the entire cohort, the corresponding hazard ratios were 1.87 (95% CI, 1.41–2.47) and 1.28 (95% CI, 1.01–1.62) for stage I to III and stage IV, respectively. However, this relationship was not observed after multivariate adjustment. Subgroup analysis found that eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 independently predicted death among patients with hematologic (adjusted HR 2.93, 95% CI [1.36–6.31]) and gynecological cancer (adjusted HR 2.82, 95% CI [1.19–6.70]), but not in those with other cancer. Five hundred fifty-seven patients (6%) had proteinuria. When controlled for potential confounding factors, proteinuria was a risk factor for all-cause mortality among patients in the entire cohort, regardless of cancer stage and eGFR values. When patients were categorized by specific cancer type, the risk of all-cause death was only significant in patients with digestive system cancer (adjusted HR, 1.85 [1.48–2.32]). The prevalence of renal dysfunction was common in patients with newly diagnosed cancer. Patients with eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 or proteinuria were associated with increased risk for all-cause mortality, this relation depended on cancer site.
Error variation in multienvironment peanut trials : Within-trial spatial correlation and between-trial heterogeneity

Multienvironment Trials (MET) are used to make cultivar recommendations about genotypes in plant breeding programs. Because of the presence of genotype × environment interaction, METs are usually conducted in multiple environments using designs that involve several replications per environment. Blocking of plots within each trial enables one to account for between plot variation. To improve the comparison of genotype means, taking into account within-trial spatial correlation as well as between-trial residual variance heterogeneity, alternative mixed models can be used. The objective of this study was to compare several spatial models, including or excluding heterogeneity of residual variances for cultivar evaluation in a set of independent peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) METs. The modeling impact was evaluated by comparing genotype means from each trial. A series of 18 METs from a peanut breeding program, as according to a randomized complete block design (RCBD) at each location, were simultaneously fitted by (i) a classic analysis of variance model for an RCBD with blocks random and (ii) mixed models incorporating spatial correlation through isotropic and anisotropic covariance structures for the error terms (power correlation function) and including homogenous and heterogeneous residual variances to take into account the different environments having different precision. Results suggest that the model with stationary anisotropic error structure AR1×AR1 within each environment and heterogeneous residual variances constitutes a good alternative analysis for METs, but it was not always better than the RCBD models for peanut. Differences were found between long- and short-cycle peanut cultivars with respect to the best model.
Testing for Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard in Consumer Loan Markets

This paper explores the significance of unobservable default risk in mortgage and automobile loan markets. I develop and estimate a two-period model that allows for heterogeneous forms of simultaneous adverse selection and moral hazard. Controlling for income levels, loan size and risk aversion, I find robust evidence of adverse selection, with borrowers self-selecting into contracts with varying interest rates and collateral requirements. For example, ex-post higher-risk borrowers pledge less collateral and pay higher interest rates. Moreover, there is strongly suggestive evidence of moral hazard such that collateral is used to induce a borrower's effort to avoid repayment problems. Thus, loan terms may have a feedback effect on behavior. Also, higher-risk borrowers are more difficult to induce into exerting effort, explaining the counter-intuitive result that higher-risk borrowers sometimes pay lower interest rates than observably lower-risk borrowers.
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) with Learning Objects and Intelligent Agent Technologies

The use of e-learning and m-learning is increasing in both academic and industrial training contexts especially on the implementation of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). The challenge today for educators is how to design and develop educational software using Learning Object and Intelligent Agent Technologies to increase the users' participation and engagement with the course materials that are offered. This paper aims to sharing the authors' experiences with the development of an edutainment system, which comprised of the embodied conversational agent and learning objects.
Transcendental $\ell$-adic Galois representations

We consider continuous representations of the Galois group G of a number field K taking values in the completion C of an algebraic closure A of the field of l-adic numbers. We give a construction of irreducible representations of G in GL(2,C) which cannot be conjugated into GL(2,A) but for which there exist density-one sets of primes with Frobenius traces in A. We also show that any such representation must be ramified at infinitely many primes of K.
The labile brain. I. Neuronal transients and nonlinear coupling.

In this, the first of three papers, the nature of, and motivation for, neuronal transients is described in relation to characterizing brain dynamics. This paper deals with some basic aspects of neuronal dynamics, interactions, coupling and implicit neuronal codes. The second paper develops neuronal transients and nonlinear coupling in the context of dynamic instability and complexity, and suggests that instability or lability is necessary for adaptive self-organization. The final paper addresses the role of neuronal transients through information theory and the emergence of spatio-temporal receptive fields and functional specialization. By considering the brain as an ensemble of connected dynamic systems one can show that a sufficient description of neuronal dynamics comprises neuronal activity at a particular time and its recent history This history constitutes a neuronal transient. As such, transients represent a fundamental metric of neuronal interactions and, implicitly, a code employed in the functional integration of brain systems. The nature of transients, expressed conjointly in distinct neuronal populations, reflects the underlying coupling among populations. This coupling may be synchronous (and possibly oscillatory) or asynchronous. A critical distinction between synchronous and asynchronous coupling is that the former is essentially linear and the latter is nonlinear. The nonlinear nature of asynchronous coupling enables the rich, context-sensitive interactions that characterize real brain dynamics, suggesting that it plays a role in functional integration that may be as important as synchronous interactions. The distinction between linear and nonlinear coupling has fundamental implications for the analysis and characterization of neuronal interactions, most of which are predicated on linear (synchronous) coupling (e.g. cross-correlograms and coherence). Using neuromagnetic data it is shown that nonlinear (asynchronous) coupling is, in fact, more abundant and can be more significant than synchronous coupling.
New period-luminosity and period-color relations of classical Cepheids. II. Cepheids in LMC

Photometric data for 593 Cepheids in the LMC, measured by Udalski et al. in the OGLE survey, augmented by 97 longer period Cepheids from other sources, are analyzed for the period-color (P-C) and period-luminosity (P-L) relations, and for the variations of amplitude, light curve shape, and period across the instability strip at constant absolute magnitude. Both the P-C and P-L relations have different slopes for periods smaller and larger than 10 days. The break at 10 days is also seen in the period-amplitude relations, and the compound Fourier combinations of R21 and Φ21 introduced by Simon and Lee. The LMC Cepheids are bluer than Galactic Cepheids in the B, V ,a ndI color bands, part of which is due to differential Fraunhofer line blanketing and part to real differences in the temperature boundaries of the instability strip. The LMC strip is hotter by between 80 K and 350 K depending on the period. Hence, both the slopes and (necessarily) the zero points of the P-L relations in B, V ,a ndI must differ between LMC and the revised relations (also given here) for the Galaxy, and in fact they do. The LMC Cepheids are brighter by up to 0.5 mag at logP = 0.4 (2 days) and fainter by 0.2 mag at logP = 1.5 (32 days). These facts complicate the use of Cepheid as precision distance indicators until the reason is found (metallicity differences or other unknown differences) for the non-universality of the P-L and P-C relations. The very large data base permits mapping of various Cepheid properties at different positions within the instability strip, both at constant period and at constant absolute magnitude over the range of 2 MV > −5. Amplitude of the light curves are largest near the blue edge of the strip for periods between 2 and 7 days and longer than 15 days. The sense is reversed for periods between 7 and 15 days. The shape of the light curves varies systematically across the strip. Highly peaked curves (of large amplitude) that necessarily have large values of R21 of about 0.5, occur near the blue edge of the strip. More symmetrical (small amplitude) light curves that have, thereby, small values of R21, generally occur near the red edge of the strip. Consequently, there is a strong correlation of R21 with color within the strip at a given absolute magnitude. Strong correlations also exist between color and period, and color and amplitude at given absolute magnitudes, for the same reason that has long been known for RR Lyrae stars, based on the sloping lines of constant period in the CMD combined with the variation of amplitude, and now R21, with color. The highly peaked light-curve shapes and large amplitudes (indicating a non-linear regime that is overdriven out of the linear regime) near the blue edge of the strip, show that the energy driver for the pulsation (i.e. the negative dissipation) is strongest at the blue edge.
On the degradation of OTA-C--based CMOS low-power filter circuits for biomedical instrumentation

In this work, we propose a degraded transistor-based circuit degradation simulation method to investigate the degradation effect in complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) biomedical devices. The method is demonstrated on an operational transconductance amplifier and capacitor (OTA-C)-based CMOS filter structure. First, we simulate the degradation of the symmetrical CMOS OTA by determining the degraded transistors in the structure. The simulation results are compared with the experimental results of our previous study. First- and second-order low-pass filter degradations are also simulated to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed method. Finally, the degradation in the electroencephalogram band-pass filter and its effect on the diagnosis is discussed.
Behavioral/systems/cognitive Functional Asymmetries in Visual Pathways Carrying S-cone Signals in Macaque

In the lateral geniculate nucleus of macaque, we recorded from neurons with substantial input from Scones and found that, on several important dimensions, the properties of neurons that receive inhibitory input from Scones (" SϪ ") are quite unlike those of neurons that receive excitatory input from Scones (" Sϩ "). First, the organization of chromatic inputs differs substantially: in Sϩ cells, Scone signals were usually opposed by those of Land M-cones; in SϪ cells, signals from L-cones were usually opposed to those of Sand M-cones. Second, to pure Scone modulation, Sϩ cells are twice as sensitive as SϪ cells, but SϪ cells were much more susceptible to contrast adaptation. Third, in SϪ cells but not Sϩ cells, the spatial frequency resolution for achromatic modulation was often greater, the tuning curve and more bandpass, than that for Scone modulation. Along the dimensions on which we measured, the properties of the Sϩ cells were relatively tightly clustered, suggesting a homogenous class. Although the chromatic properties of SϪ cells are heterogeneous, the distribution of their tuning along other stimulus dimensions does not suggest multiple subtypes.
DEVELOPMENT OF A WEBBASED APPLICATION TO DETECT PALINDROMES IN DNA SEQUENCES

Detecting palindromes in DNA sequence is a central problem in computational biology. Identifying palindromes could help scientists advance the understanding of genomic instability. DNA sequences containing long adjacent inverted repeats (palindromes) are inherently unstable and are associated with many types of chromosomal rearrangements. In this paper, we present a simple web-base tool to assist biologist detecting palindromes in DNA sequence.
Leader Election in the Timed Finite Average Response Time Model

Leader election is one of the fundamental problems in distributed systems. A leader is a correct process that can be used to coordinate the work of a set of processes. An algorithm has to implement two properties to solve the leader election problem: (1) safety, (2) liveness. In this work we show that the stabilization property is not necessary for the leader election problem. We do this by examine the ability to solve leader election in the FAR model. The FAR model does neither assume the existence of an upper bound on the communication or computation delays nor that the system stabilizes. Instead it assumes that the system is in a certain balance: computation is not infinitely fast, the communication subsystem has rudimentary congestion control and the average response time between two correct processes is finite. Our contribution is twofold: (1) we show that leader election is not solvable in the pure FAR model and (2) that it becomes solvable with local clocks with a bounded drift rate
Immune Phenotype and Body Condition in Roe Deer: Individuals with High Body Condition Have Different, Not Stronger Immunity

An efficient immunity is necessary for host survival, but entails energetic costs. When energy is limited, immunocompetence and body condition should co-vary positively among individuals and, depending on body condition, individuals should allocate more either in innate immunity or in adaptive response. We tested whether immune phenotype depends on body condition in large mammals, using data from two contrasted populations of roe deer Capreolus capreolus in France. Roe deer living at Chizé, a forest with poor habitat quality, were expected to show lower values for body condition and immune parameters than roe deer at Trois Fontaines, a forest with high habitat quality. From 285 blood samples collected between December 2009 and March 2011, we measured seven metabolic parameters and ten immunological parameters. A Principal Component Analysis showed that all indicators of body condition co-varied positively and were lowest at Chizé. Several immunological indicators correlated to body condition and differed between Trois Fontaines and Chizé. However, high body condition was not associated to a high average level of immunocompetence, but instead to high levels of indicators of acute inflammatory innate response, while low body condition was associated to high levels of monocytes and lymphocytes, possibly reflecting adaptive immunity. Limited data suggest that the difference between populations was not related to the presence of specific parasite species, however parasite exposure and stress have to be investigated to gain a more complete understanding of the determinants of immunity.
Optimization of coils in wireless telemetry systems using the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm

In this work, we propose to use the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method to optimize the power efficiency, the data gain, and the interference of wireless telemetry systems. Two design cases are discussed. The first one is a power only transmission system which is used in retinal stimulation. The system's power transmission efficiency after proposed optimization can achieve 79.1% at the frequency of 1MHz. The real system is implemented in PCB, and the testing result is close to the simulations. We also compare the results obtained from the sweeping optimization method with the proposed PSO method for this design case. The second system is a dual band system which transmits power and data at the frequency of 1MHz and 13.56MHz separately. After optimization, the efficiency can achieve 74.8%, with a 5.137 data gain and a small interference of 0.055.
Feature Extraction using Fuzzy C - Means Clustering for Data Mining Systems

Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining(KDD) process includes preprocessing, transformation, data mining and knowledge extraction. The two important tasks of data mining are clustering and classification. In this paper, we propose a generic feature extraction for classification using Fuzzy C-Means(FCM) clustering. The raw data is preprocessed, normalized and then data points are clustered using fuzzy c-means technique. Feature vectors for all the classes are generated by extracting the most relevant features from the corresponding clusters and used for further classification. Artificial Neural Network and Support Vector Machines are used to perform the classification task. Experiments are conducted on four datasets and the accuracy obtained by performing specific feature extraction for a particular data set is compared with generic feature extraction scheme. The algorithm performs relatively well with respect to classification results when compared with the specific feature extraction technique.
Environmental Morale and Motivation

This chapter discusses the role of environmental morale and environmental motivation in individual behavior from the point of view of economics and psychology. It deals with the fundamental public good problem, and presents empirical (laboratory and field) evidence on how the cooperation problem can be overcome. Four different theoretical approaches are distinguished according to how individualsi? ½ underlying environmental motivation is modeled. Specifically, we look at the interaction between environmental policy and environmental morale through the lens of cognitive evaluation theory (also known as crowding theory).
Personal Device as a Controller for Interactive Surfaces: Usability and Utility of Different Connection Methods

The popularity of touch-screen-equipped smart phones has made them an attractive choice for interacting with large display surfaces, especially in public spaces. The challenge in using a personal mobile device for interaction in such a setting lies in the usability of methods to initiate the interaction, as the users may give up if the interaction is not immediately successful. For this reason, a few commercial systems have already opted to use web-based interaction instead of dedicated mobile applications. However, the usability of different methods of initiating the web-based interaction has not been extensively studied. In this paper we present the results of a laboratory usability study with 20 participants, in which we studied how the users experienced four different methods of initiating web-based interaction between a smart phone and a large display surface. The compared initiation methods were NFC, QR code, typing an URL and connecting to a WiFi access point. Additionally, in order to study how the users experienced the quality of the connection, the first three methods were used over 3G. Our results indicate typing an URL to be the most usable method for initiating the connection between the smart phone and the large display surface. The difference in quality between the 3G and WiFi connections was deemed hardly noticeable by the subjects. We acknowledge that our results are only preliminary, and the subject needs to be studied in a more realistic setting to get a more comprehensive picture.
Dictyostelium RasG Is Required for Normal Motility and Cytokinesis, But Not Growth

RasG is the most abundant Ras protein in growing Dictyostelium cells and the closest relative of mammalian Ras proteins. We have generated null mutants in which expression of RasG is completely abolished. Unexpectedly, RasG − cells are able to grow at nearly wild-type rates. However, they exhibit defective cell movement and a wide range of defects in the control of the actin cytoskeleton, including a loss of cell polarity, absence of normal lamellipodia, formation of unusual small, punctate polymerized actin structures, and a large number of abnormally long filopodia. Despite their lack of polarity and abnormal cytoskeleton, mutant cells perform normal chemotaxis. However, rasG − cells are unable to perform normal cytokinesis, becoming multinucleate when grown in suspension culture. Taken together, these data suggest a principal role for RasG in coordination of cell movement and control of the cytoskeleton.
The role of interpersonal contingency and self-focused attention in the development of trust in clinical paranoia : a virtual reality study

Aims: Research into interpersonal processes involved in paranoia remains limited. This study aimed to assess the feasibility of using interactive virtual reality in a clinical sample with psychosis and persecutory delusions. The study aimed to replicate an experiment which found healthy individuals high in paranoia showed a hypersensitivity to contingent behaviour which increased their perceived trust towards the avatar. A further aim was to investigate the impact of self-focused attention on the perception of interpersonal contingency and trust. Method: Eighteen male participants with psychosis and paranoia completed the virtual reality exercise. Participants entered a virtual flat and interviewed a virtual flatmate whose non-verbal responses were either high or low in contingency in relation to the participant. Trust towards the avatar was measured by self-report and behaviour towards the virtual flatmate, operationalised as interpersonal distance. Focus of attention, affect and immersion in the virtual reality scenario were assessed. Results: Overall, participants enjoyed and were immersed in the interactive virtual reality environment. Interpersonal distance was predicted by severity of persecutory delusions and negative affect. Exploratory graphic analyses showed no evidence of hypersensitivity to avatar contingency or moderating effect of self-focus attention. Persecutory delusion severity was associated with other-focus attention, which in turn, unexpectedly, predicted higher self-focused attention. Conclusions: Interactive virtual reality is a safe and feasibility research tool for individuals with clinical paranoia. Severity of persecutory delusions, rather than environmental manipulation, predicted trust. However, the lack of power in the current study prevents clear conclusions about the impact of interpersonal contingency on trust in clinical paranoia from being drawn. Replication is required with a larger sample and a more ambiguous scenario.