Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recent NICE guidance of interest to surgeons

Quality standards are a set of statements about measurable components of high quality and cost effective care. They are based on consideration of effectiveness, patient safety and patient experience. Quality standards are designed to be aspirational but achievable. Commissioners will use them in setting contracts. The quality standard on colorectal cancer was published in August 2012 and has eight key statements: Statement 1: People with suspected colorectal cancer without major co-morbidity are offered diagnostic colonoscopy. Statement 2: People with colon cancer are offered contrast enhanced computed tomography (CT) of the chest, abdomen and pelvis to determine the stage of the disease. Statement 3: People with rectal cancer are offered contrast enhanced CT of the chest, abdomen and pelvis to determine the stage of the disease, and pelvic magnetic resonance imaging to assess the risk of local recurrence. Statement 4: People with rectal cancer are offered a preop-erative treatment strategy appropriate to their risk of local disease recurrence. Statement 5: People with locally excised, pathologically confirmed stage I colorectal cancer whose tumour had involved resection margins (<1mm) are offered further surgery or active monitoring. Statement 6: People with contrast enhanced CT of the chest, abdomen and pelvis suggesting liver metastatic colorec-tal cancer have their scans reviewed by the hepatobiliary multidisciplinary team to decide whether further imaging is needed to confirm suitability for surgery. Statement 7: People with locally advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer whose disease progresses after first-line systemic anticancer therapy are offered second-line systemic anticancer therapy if they are able to tolerate it. Statement 8: People free from disease after treatment for colorectal cancer are offered regular surveillance. The full text of the quality standard provides more detail about what each statement means for different audiences, including clinicians, patients and commissioners. It also provides links to the evidence underpinning the statements and to related guidance. This is about 'diathermy'! The Mega Soft (Megadyne, Draper , UT, US) system replaces a standard adhesive monopo-lar diathermy plate with a pressure relieving mattress that remains on the operating table and is cleaned between patients. It contains an electrode that has much more extensive contact with the patient than a standard adhesive pad. The evidence supported the claim that Mega Soft may offer advantages for some patients by: (a) avoidance of shaving for application of adhesive pads and (b) avoidance of adhesive for those with fragile or damaged skin. Use of Mega Soft also …
Realizing the Social Internet? Online Social Networking Meets Offline Civic Engagement

ABSTRACT Does Internet use have the potential to build social capital? Emerging evidence suggests that politically knowledgeable, interpersonally trusting, and civically engaged individuals share particular patterns of Internet use. In previous national survey studies, Internet use has been divided into a handful of excessively broad categories, and researchers have been unable to address newer, category-spanning Internet uses as well as the potential impact of individual Web sites. By examining the use of online social networks in a nationally representative sample of young people, this study explores the varied relationships between indicators of social capital and Internet use on a site-specific level (i.e., MySpace vs. Facebook). Indeed, differences between social networking sites are as large as those between more global categories of use (e.g., informational vs. social networking) and are robust to attempts to account for differences between the users of the sites. In explaining these relationships and exploring the differences between social networking sites, we suggest that Web site use induces a site-specific culture that can either encourage or hinder social capital.
Arabidopsis thaliana and the Robin Hood parasite: a chivalrous oomycete that steals fitness from fecund hosts and benefits the poorest one?

Are parasites always harmful to their hosts? By definition, indeed, but in a few cases and particular environments, hosts experience higher fitness in the presence than in the absence of their parasites. Symbiotic associations form a continuum of interactions, from deleterious to beneficial effects on hosts. In this paper, we investigate the outcome of parasite infection of Arabidopsis thaliana by its natural pathogen Hyaloperonospora arabidopsis. This system exhibits a wide range of parasite impact on host fitness with, surprisingly, deleterious effects on high fecundity hosts and, at the opposite extreme, seemingly beneficial effects on the least fecund one. This phenomenon might result from varying levels of tolerance among host lines and even overcompensation for parasite damage analogous to what can be observed in plant–herbivore systems.
Spatially-coupled binary MacKay-Neal codes for channels with non-binary inputs and affine subspace outputs

We study LDPC codes for the channel with 2<sup>m</sup>-ary input x ϵ F<sub>2</sub><sup>m</sup> and output y = x + z ϵ F<sub>2</sub><sup>m</sup>. The receiver knows a subspace V ⊂ F<sub>2</sub><sup>m</sup> from which z = y - x is uniformly chosen. Or equivalently, the receiver receives an affine subspace y-V where x lies. We consider a joint iterative decoder involving the channel detector and the LDPC decoder. The decoding system considered in this paper can be viewed as a simplified model of the joint iterative decoder over non-binary modulated signal inputs e.g., 2<sup>m</sup>-QAM. We evaluate the performance of binary spatially-coupled MacKay-Neal codes by density evolution. The iterative decoding threshold is seriously degraded by increasing m. EXIT-like function curve calculations reveal that this degradation is caused by wiggles and can be mitigated by increasing the randomized window size. The resultant iterative decoding threshold values are very close to the Shannon limit.
Identification and characterization of up‐regulated genes during chondrocyte hypertrophy

Chondrocyte hypertrophy involves de novo acquisition and/or increased expression of certain gene products including, among others, type X collagen, alkaline phosphatase, and matrix metalloproteinases. To analyze further the genetic program associated with chondrocyte hypertrophy, we have employed a modification of the polymerase chain reaction‐mediated subtractive hybridization method of Wang and Brown (Wang and Brown [1991] Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci 88:11505). Cultures of hypertrophic tibial chondrocytes and nonhypertrophic sternal cells were used for poly A+ RNA isolation. Among 50 individual cDNA fragments isolated for up‐regulated hypertrophic genes, 18 were tentatively identified by their similarities to entries in the GenBank database, whereas the other 32 showed no significant similarity. The identified genes included translational and transcriptional regulatory factors, ribosomal proteins, the enzymes transglutaminase and glycogen phosphorylase, type X collagen (highly specific for hypertrophic cartilage matrix), gelsolin, and the carbohydrate‐binding protein galectin. Two of these, transglutaminase and galectin, were cloned and were further characterized. The chondrocyte transglutaminase revealed previously in hypertrophic cartilage by immunochemical methods appears to be the chicken equivalent of mammalian factor XIIIa (showing 75% overall protein similarity). The chicken chondrocyte galectin is a variant of mammalian galectin‐3. Galectins are known to bind to components found in hypertrophic cartilage, and factor XIIIa is known to crosslink some of the same components, possibly modifying them for calcification and/or removal. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Synergistic Effect of Calcineurin Inhibitors and Fluconazole against Candida albicans Biofilms

ABSTRACT Calcineurin is a Ca2+-calmodulin-activated serine/threonine-specific protein phosphatase that governs multiple aspects of fungal physiology, including cation homeostasis, morphogenesis, antifungal drug susceptibility, and virulence. Growth of Candida albicans planktonic cells is sensitive to the calcineurin inhibitors FK506 and cyclosporine A (CsA) in combination with the azole antifungal fluconazole. This drug synergism is attributable to two effects: first, calcineurin inhibitors render fluconazole fungicidal rather than simply fungistatic, and second, membrane perturbation by azole inhibition of ergosterol biosynthesis increases intracellular calcineurin inhibitor concentrations. C. albicans cells in biofilms are up to 1,000-fold more resistant to fluconazole than planktonic cells. In both in vitro experiments and in an in vivo rat catheter model, C. albicans cells in biofilms were resistant to individually delivered fluconazole or calcineurin inhibitors but exquisitely sensitive to the combination of FK506-fluconazole or CsA-fluconazole. C. albicans strains lacking FKBP12 or expressing a dominant FK506-resistant calcineurin mutant subunit (Cnb1-1) formed biofilms that were resistant to FK506-fluconazole but susceptible to CsA-fluconazole, demonstrating that drug synergism is mediated via direct calcineurin inhibition. These findings reveal that calcineurin contributes to fluconazole resistance of biofilms and provide evidence that synergistic drug combinations may prove efficacious as novel therapeutic interventions to treat or prevent biofilms.
HMM and IOHMM for the Recognition of Mono- and Bi-Manual 3D Hand Gestures

In this paper, we address the problem of the recognition of isolated complex mono- and bi-manual hand gestures. In the proposed system, hand gestures are represented by the 3D trajectories of blobs obtained by tracking colored body parts. In this paper, we study the results obtained on a complex database of mono- and bi-manual gestures. These results are obtained by using Input/Output Hidden Markov Model (IOHMM), implemented within the framework of an open source machine learning library, and are compared to Hidden Markov Model (HMM).
Determinants of Youth and Young Adults Work Satisfaction in Lithuania

The aim of this paper is to disclose the determinants of youth and young adult’s work satisfaction in Lithuania. It is accomplished using the results of empirical study of youth and young adults 16-40 years old, (N=551). This empirical study was supported by the Research Council of Lithuania under the National Science Programme ‘Challenges for Social Security’ project ‘Youth and Young Adults Living Conditions and Social Exclusion: Development of Monitoring System’. For the analysis of determinants for youth and young adults work satisfaction, the indicators reflecting different dimensions of working life, working environment, remunetation for work, etc, were selected out of the total data matrix. The analysis using different statistical methods (t-test, regression analysis and variance) was carried out. A work (dis)satisfaction scale consisting of 45 primary indicators was created. The main results of the analysis are the following: 1) women are generally more satisfied with work than men; 2) persons with higher education level are generally more satisfied with work than persons with lower educational achievements; 3) residents of small towns and rural areas are less satisfied with work than residents of urban areas; 4) satisfaction with work is related to other spheres of social life, e.g. emigrational, suicidal attitudes, willingness to support social protest actions, etc. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5755/j01.ss. 78.4. 3232
Leicester Cough Questionnaire: translation to Portuguese and cross-cultural adaptation for use in Brazil

Objective: To translate the Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ) to Portuguese and adapt it for use in Brazil. Methods: Cross-cultural adaptation of a quality of life questionnaire requires a translated version that is conceptually equivalent to the original version and culturally acceptable in the target country. The protocol used consisted of the translation of the LCQ to Portuguese by three Brazilian translators who were fluent in English and its back-translation to English by another translator who was a native speaker of English and fluent in Portuguese. The back-translated version was evaluated by one of the authors of the original questionnaire in order to verify its equivalence. Later in the process, a provisional Portuguese-language version was thoroughly reviewed by an expert committee. In 10 patients with chronic cough, cognitive debriefing was carried out in order to test the understandability, clarity, and acceptability of the translated questionnaire in the target population. On that basis, the final Portuguese-language version of the LCQ was produced and approved by the committee. Results: Few items were questioned by the source author and revised by the committee of experts. During the cognitive debriefing phase, the Portuguese-language version of the LCQ proved to be well accepted and understood by all of the respondents, which demonstrates the robustness of the process of translation and cross-cultural adaptation. Conclusions: The final version of the LCQ adapted for use in Brazil was found to be easy to understand and easily applied.
DWT based optimal power allocation schemes for scalable video transmission in OFDM based cognitive radio systems

In this paper, we propose and investigate the performance of optimal power loading algorithms towards scalable video transmission over an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based Cognitive radio (CR) system. The proposed power allocation scheme minimizes the overall video distortion while restricting secondary user interference. For this purpose, we employ the two level Daubechies wavelet D2 to encode the video as a layered scalable stream comprising of one Base layer and several enhancement layers. The coded video layers are assigned to the secondary OFDM subcarriers of the CR user. A convex optimization framework is developed for video distortion as a function of the subcarrier power allocation. We employ this framework and derive a closed form expression towards the optimal power allocation for video quality maximization. We also propose a low complexity scheme for near optimal video transmission. The performances of the proposed optimal schemes are compared in terms of the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) of the received video stream in the OFDM CR wireless system. Presented numerical results demonstrate that the proposed optimal scheme results in a significantly enhanced PSNR of video transmission compared to the competing scalable and non-scalable schemes.
Draft Genome Sequence of Bradyrhizobium japonicum Is-1, Which Is Incompatible with Rj2 Genotype Soybeans

ABSTRACT We report the draft genome sequence of Bradyrhizobium japonicum Is-1, which is incompatible with Rj2 genotype soybeans. The estimated genome size of this strain is 8.9 Mb. Genome sequence information of this strain will help to identify a causal gene for this incompatibility.
Multitemporal Image Change Detection Using Undecimated Discrete Wavelet Transform and Active Contours

In this paper, an unsupervised change detection method for satellite images is proposed. Owing to its robustness against noise, the undecimated discrete wavelet transform is exploited to obtain a multiresolution representation of the difference image, which is obtained from two satellite images acquired from the same geographical area but at different time instances. A region-based active contour model is then applied to the multiresolution representation of the difference image for segmenting the difference image into the “changed” and “unchanged” regions. The proposed change detection method has been conducted on two types of image data sets, i.e., the synthetic aperture radar images and the optical images. The change detection results are compared with several state-of-the-art techniques. The extensive simulation results clearly show that the proposed change detection method consistently yields superior performance.
PAPIERS DE RECHERCHE WORKING PAPERS

CEO’s leadership is an organizational dimension that has not been carefully studied in the literature on small firms. Particularly, as organizational learning is now anchored as an important part of the building and sustaining of the small and medium firm’s competitive advantage, how leadership characteristics may moderate the positive link between organizational learning and performance is important for managers and researchers. We could hypothesize that, combined with organizational learning processes, some leaders’ characteristics and behaviours are more important than others to lead the development of an organizational climate oriented toward innovation or performance. This paper presents the theoretical framework and hypotheses of this on-going research on the links between organizational learning, leadership and performance in small and medium firms.
CONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION : PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE Concurrency Computat

The globally integrated contemporary business environment has prompted new challenges to database architectures in order to enable organizations to improve database applications performance, scalability, reliability and data privacy in adapting to the evolving nature of business. Although a number of distributed database architectures are available for choice, there is a lack of an in-depth understanding of the performance characteristics of these database architectures in a comparison way. In this paper, we report a performance study of three typical (centralized, partitioned and replicated) database architectures. We used the TPC-C as the evaluation benchmark to simulate a contemporary business environment, and a commercially available database management system that supports the three architectures. We compared the performance of the partitioned and replicated architectures against the centralized database, which results in some interesting observations and practical experience. The findings and the practice presented in this paper provide useful information and experience for the enterprise architects and database administrators in determining the appropriate database architecture in moving from centralized to distributed environments. Copyright © 2012 JohnWiley & Sons, Ltd.
Social Facilitation Effects of Virtual Humans

Objective: To investigate whether virtual humans produce social facilitation effects. Background: When people do an easy task and another person is nearby, they tend to do that task better than when they are alone. Conversely, when people do a hard task and another person is nearby, they tend to do that task less well than when they are alone. This phenomenon is referred to in the social psychology literature as social facilitation. The present study investigated whether virtual humans can evoke a social facilitation response. Method: Participants were given different tasks to do that varied in difficulty. The tasks involved anagrams, mazes, and modular arithmetic. They did the tasks alone, in the company of another person, or in the company of a virtual human on a computer screen. Results: For easy tasks, performance in the virtual human condition was better than in the alone condition, and for difficult tasks, performance in the virtual human condition was worse than in the alone condition. Conclusion: As with a human, virtual humans can produce social facilitation. Application: The results suggest that designers of virtual humans should be mindful about the social nature of virtual humans; a design decision as to when and how to present a virtual human should be a deliberate and informed decision. An ever-present virtual human might make learning and performance difficult for challenging tasks.
Indicators of Antarctic ozone depletion

Abstract. An assimilated data base of total column ozone measurements from satellites has been used to generate a set of indicators describing attributes of the Antarctic ozone hole for the period 1979 to 2003, including (i) daily measures of the area over Antarctica where ozone levels are below 150 DU, below 220 DU, more than 30% below 1979 to 1981 norms, and more than 50% below 1979 to 1981 norms, (ii) the date of disappearance of 150 DU ozone values, 220 DU ozone values, values 30% below 1979 to 1981 norms, and values 50% below 1979 to 1981 norms, for each year, (iii) daily minimum total column ozone values over Antarctica, and (iv) daily values of the ozone mass deficit based on a O3
Mental Rotation With Tangible Three-Dimensional Objects: A New Measure Sensitive to Developmental Differences in 4- to 8-Year-Old Children

There is an emerging consensus that spatial thinking is fundamental to later success in math and science. The goals of this study were to design and evaluate a novel test of three-dimensional (3D) mental rotation for 4- to 8-year- old children (N = 165) that uses tangible 3D objects. Results revealed that the measure was both valid and reliable and indicated steady growth in 3D mental rotation between the ages of 4 and 8. Performance on the measure was highly related to success on a measure of two-dimensional (2D) mental rotation, even after controlling for executive functioning. Although children as young as 5 years old performed above chance, 3D mental rotation appears to be a difficult skill for most children under the age of 7, as indicated by frequent guessing and difficulty with mirror objects. The test is a useful new tool for studying the development of 3D mental rotation in young children.
The Influence of Group Cohesiveness on Some Changes Induced by Flexitime: A Quasi-Experiment

This article examines the introduction offlexitime in a high-technology organization. In this study, the authors employed a quasi-experimental design that uses both an experimental and a control group and preand postmeasures. They assessed the impact of flexitime on employee perceptions of flexibility, back up, superior-subordinate relations, quality of supervision, job satisfaction, and productivity, using work-group cohesiveness as a moderator variable. The results indicate that employees in highly cohesive work groups reported improvement inflexibility, back up, superior-subordinate relations, and productivity. Employees in groups that lacked cohesion did not report any statistically significant change in any variable.
Information embedding on actions in wiretap channel

Information embedding on actions is a new channel model in which a specific decoder is used to observe the actions taken by the encoder and retrieve part of the message intended for the receiver. We revisit this model and consider a more practical scenario where secrecy constraints are imposed. By adding a wiretapper in the model, we aim to send the confidential message to the receiver and keep it secret from the wiretapper as much as possible. We characterize the inner and outer bounds on the capacity-equivocation region of such a channel with noncausal (and causal) channel state information. Furthermore, the lower and upper bounds on the secrecy capacity are also obtained. Besides, by eliminating the specific decoder, we get a new outer bound on the capacity-equivocation region of wiretap channel with action-dependent states and prove it is tighter than the existing outer bound.