Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A multicenter, retrospective pilot study of resource use and costs associated with severity of disease in glaucoma.

OBJECTIVE To examine resource consumption and the direct costs of treating glaucoma at different disease severity levels. DESIGN Observational, retrospective cohort study based on medical record review. PARTICIPANTS One hundred fifty-one records of patients with primary open-angle or normal-tension glaucoma, glaucoma suspect, or ocular hypertension (age > or =18 years) were randomly selected from 12 sites in the United States and stratified according to severity based on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes. Patients had to have been followed up for a minimum of 5 years. Patients with concomitant ocular disease likely to affect glaucoma treatment-related resource consumption were excluded. METHODS Glaucoma severity was assessed and assigned using a 6-stage glaucoma staging system, modified from the Bascom Palmer (Hodapp-Anderson-Parrish) system. Clinical and resource use data were collected from the medical record review. Resource consumption for low-vision care and vision rehabilitation was estimated for patients with end-stage disease based on specialist surveys. For each stage of disease, publicly available economic data were then applied to assign resource valuation and estimate patient-level direct costs from the payer perspective. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Average annual resource use and estimated total annual direct cost of treatment were calculated at the patient level and stratified by stage of disease. Direct costs by specific resource types, including ophthalmology visits, glaucoma surgeries, medications, visual field examinations, and other glaucoma services, were also assessed. RESULTS Direct ophthalmology-related resource use, including ophthalmology visits, glaucoma surgeries, and medication use, increased as disease severity worsened. Average direct cost of treatment ranged from $623 per patient per year for glaucoma suspects or patients with early-stage disease to $2511 per patient per year for patients with end-stage disease. Medication costs composed the largest proportion of total direct cost for all stages of disease (range, 24%-61%). CONCLUSIONS The study results suggest that resource use and direct cost of glaucoma management increase with worsening disease severity. Based on these findings, a glaucoma treatment that delays the progression of disease could have the potential to significantly reduce the health economic burden of this chronic disease over many years.
Inhibition of p53 Transcriptional Activity by Bcl-2 Requires Its Membrane-anchoring Domain*

We show here that the anti-apoptosis protein Bcl-2 potently inhibits p53-dependent transcriptional activation of various p53-responsive promoters in reporter gene co-transfection assays in human embryonic kidney 293 and MCF7 cells, without affecting nuclear accumulation of p53 protein. In contrast, Bcl-2(Δtransmembrane (TM)), which lacks a hydrophobic membrane-anchoring domain, had no effect on p53 activity. Similarly, in MCF7 cells stably expressing either Bcl-2 or Bcl-2(ΔTM), nuclear levels of p53 protein were up-regulated upon treatment with the DNA-damaging agents doxorubicin and UV radiation, whereas p53-responsive promoter activity and expression of p21CIP1/WAF1 were strongly reduced in MCF7-Bcl-2 cells but not in MCF7-Bcl-2(ΔTM) or control MCF7 cells. The issue of membrane anchoring was further explored by testing the effects of Bcl-2 chimeric proteins that contained heterologous transmembrane domains from the mitochondrial protein ActA or the endoplasmic reticulum protein cytochrome b5. Both Bcl-2(ActA) and Bcl-2(Cytob5) suppressed p53-mediated transactivation of reporter gene plasmids with efficiencies comparable to wild-type Bcl-2. These results suggest that (a) Bcl-2 not only suppresses p53-mediated apoptosis but also interferes with the transcriptional activation of p53 target genes at least in some cell lines, and (b) membrane anchoring is required for this function of Bcl-2. We speculate that membrane-anchored Bcl-2 may sequester an unknown factor necessary for p53 transcriptional activity.
Factors inhibiting the adoption of DevOps in large organisations: South African context

DevOps has been identified as a phenomenon whereby stakeholders of a software development team work together to deliver software continuously, allowing the business to seize emerging and existing market opportunities while reducing the time required for inclusion of client feedback. However, little has been done to develop adoption strategies/frameworks for this phenomenon. The absence of such strategies may result in DevOps not being adequately communicated and its impact not fully comprehended in both the practitioner and academic research communities. This study investigates the factors that are hindering the adoption of DevOps and proposes strategies to address them using both literature study and interviews with practitioners actively involved in the DevOps movement. Five main factors hindering the adoption of DevOps are identified: lack of strategic direction from senior management; lack of education around DevOps; risk of disintermediation of roles; resistance to change and silo mentality. A proposed conceptual framework has been developed both to strategize the adoption of DevOps, and to contribute input for future research.
Evaluation of chip space-time block coding DS-WCDMA in time-varying channels

In this paper, we investigate the performance of the downlink of a wideband code division multiple access system employing space-time block coding in a time-varying multipath channel. Space-time block coding is applied at the chip level to improve the robustness of the system to fading envelope variations. Simulation results show that the presented scheme offers considerable diversity gain even for high mobility users transmitting low data rate, outperforming a system employing symbol level space-time block coding in time-variant channels.
Dynamic Rupture Scenarios in the Brawley Seismic Zone, Salton Trough, Southern California

In this paper we investigate the dynamic behavior of a system of interconnected faults in the Brawley Seismic Zone (BSZ) in southern California. The system of faults includes the southern San Andreas Fault (SSAF), the Imperial Fault (IF), and a set of cross faults in the BSZ that may serve as connecting structures between the two larger faults. Geological and seismic evidence imply that the SSAF and IF may have buried extensions that link them together in a large‐scale step over, with the cross faults in the BSZ cutting between them. Such a configuration poses the question of whether through‐going rupture across the step over is possible in this region, leading to large, plate‐boundary scale earthquakes. We investigate potential earthquakes in this region through 3‐D dynamic finite element spontaneous rupture modeling. We find that under multiple assumptions about fault stress and fault geometry, through‐going rupture is possible, both from north to south and south to north. Participation of the cross faults is facilitated by two factors: absence of rupture on one of the main two faults and a contrast in prestress between the main faults and the cross faults, leading to slow propagation speed on the main faults while maintaining ease of failure on the cross faults. The pattern of rupture propagation and slip is strongly affected by fault‐to‐fault dynamic stress interactions during the rupture process. The results may have implications for both potential earthquakes in this region, as well as for understanding the dynamics of geometrically complex/branched faults in general.
An anomaly-driven reverse proxy for web applications

Careless development of web-based applications results in vulnerable code being deployed and made available to the whole Internet, creating easily-exploitable entry points for the compromise of entire networks. To ameliorate this situation, we propose an approach that composes a web-based anomaly detection system with a reverse HTTP proxy. The approach is based on the assumption that a web site's content can be split into security sensitive and non-sensitive parts, which are distributed to different servers. The anomaly score of a web request is then used to route suspicious requests to copies of the web site that do not hold sensitive content. By doing this, it is possible to serve anomalous but benign requests that do not require access to sensitive information, sensibly reducing the impact of false positives. We developed a prototype of our approach and evaluated its applicability with respect to several existing web-based applications, showing that our approach is both feasible and effective.
Dynamic logic of preference upgrade

Statements not only update our current knowledge, but also have other dynamic effects. In particular, suggestions or commands ‘upgrade' our preferences by changing the current order among worlds. We present a complete logic of knowledge update plus preference upgrade that works with dynamic-epistemic-style reduction axioms. This system can model changing obligations, conflicting commands, or ‘regret'. We then show how to derive reduction axioms from arbitrary definable relation changes. This style of analysis also has a product update version with preferences between actions, as well as worlds. Some illustrations are presented involving defaults and obligations. We conclude that our dynamic framework is viable, while admitting a further extension to more numerical ‘utility update'.
Learning Web Page Scores by Error Back-Propagation

In this paper we present a novel algorithm to learn a score distribution over the nodes of a labeled graph (directed or undirected). Markov Chain theory is used to define the model of a random walker that converges to a score distribution which depends both on the graph connectivity and on the node labels. A supervised learning task is defined on the given graph by assigning a target score for some nodes and a training algorithm based on error backpropagation through the graph is devised to learn the model parameters. The trained model can assign scores to the graph nodes generalizing the criteria provided by the supervisor in the examples. The proposed algorithm has been applied to learn a ranking function for Web pages. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique in reorganizing the rank accordingly to the examples provided in the training set.
Improving communication of critical laboratory results: know your process

Many hospitals strive to implement systems that allow for timely and reliable communication of critical laboratory results (CLRs) to the responsible physician.1–3 With recent advances in health information technology (IT), an increasing number of institutions are turning to solutions that involve varying degrees of automation to streamline this process. The use of automation to improve the efficiency and reliability of an alerting process is enticing. Many of us have benefited from automation in our day-to-day lives: Reminders in our calendars, alerts sent to our smartphones indicating our flight is delayed, or monthly withdrawals from our bank accounts to pay our bills are just a few examples. When thoughtfully designed and applied, automation can make life both more simple and reliable. However, there is a common misconception that automation is as simple as flipping a switch that, when activated, replaces unpredictable human activity with a foolproof system that delivers the same result every time. Unfortunately, an automated solution often fails to achieve its desired outcome, in large part because the underlying process being automated has not been carefully considered. Rushing to introduce automation without careful planning to account for existing clinical processes is the Achilles' heel of any health IT implementation. A study of computerised provider order entry (CPOE) implementation in a paediatric intensive care unit (ICU) that purportedly increased mortality offers a sobering example of the potential risks of premature implementation.4 Before CPOE implementation, when a child was transferred from an outside institution to their ICU, the paediatric intensivist would order medication infusions so that they could be prepared in advance, arrange for diagnostic imaging studies to be carried out immediately on arrival, and write the admission orders, all before the patient arrived. However, after CPOE implementation, none of these anticipatory actions could take …
A Compact Forest for Scalable Inference over Entailment and Paraphrase Rules

A large body of recent research has been investigating the acquisition and application of applied inference knowledge. Such knowledge may be typically captured as entailment rules, applied over syntactic representations. Efficient inference with such knowledge then becomes a fundamental problem. Starting out from a formalism for entailment-rule application we present a novel packed data-structure and a corresponding algorithm for its scalable implementation. We proved the validity of the new algorithm and established its efficiency analytically and empirically.
IBM in TREC 2006 Enterprise Track

In 2006, IBM participated for the first time in the Enterprise Track, submitting runs for both the discussion and expert tasks. The Enterprise Track is intended to address information seeking tasks common in corporate settings using information that is readily available on corporate intranets. Because of confidentiality issues, the corpus used for this task is a snapshot of w3c.org as of June 2004, considering the W3C as a “corporation” that conducts its dayto-day business on the web. This corpus consists of a heterogeneous set of data sources, including web pages, mailing lists, code, wiki, etc. [Craswell et al. 2006]. The discussion task seeks e-mail messages that discuss the pro or con of a given subject matter, while the expert task requires that experts for given topics be identified.
Potential Vaccines and Post-Exposure Treatments for Filovirus Infections

Viruses of the family Filoviridae represent significant health risks as emerging infectious diseases as well as potentially engineered biothreats. While many research efforts have been published offering possibilities toward the mitigation of filoviral infection, there remain no sanctioned therapeutic or vaccine strategies. Current progress in the development of filovirus therapeutics and vaccines is outlined herein with respect to their current level of testing, evaluation, and proximity toward human implementation, specifically with regard to human clinical trials, nonhuman primate studies, small animal studies, and in vitro development. Contemporary methods of supportive care and previous treatment approaches for human patients are also discussed.
Genomic variation of human papillomavirus type 16 and risk for high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.

BACKGROUND Epidemiologic studies have demonstrated strong and consistent associations between the detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16 DNA and the risk of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and cervical cancer. However, HPV16 is also the most common type of HPV in the normal population, and only a minority of women with HPV16 infection develop cervical cancer. Studies of genomic heterogeneity in HPV16 have demonstrated the presence of multiple variant forms in all human populations examined to date. It is conceivable that the natural variants of HPV16 in a given population may not have the same biologic behavior. PURPOSE This study was designed to determine the association between natural variants of HPV16 and the risk of biopsy-confirmed CIN 2 or 3, the most important precancerous lesions of the uterine cervix. METHODS Prospective studies were conducted among 1) women attending a university and 2) women presenting to a sexually transmitted disease clinic. Subjects were eligible for inclusion in this investigation if the initial cytologic findings did not reveal CIN 2-3 and HPV16 DNA was detected by means of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based method in one or more cervical or vulvovaginal samples. Eligible subjects were followed every 4 months with cervical Pap smears and colposcopic examinations. Women were referred for biopsy if cytology or colposcopy suggested CIN 2-3. Two groups of HPV16 variants, prototype-like and nonprototype-like, were determined by means of single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis of PCR products from the noncoding region of the viral genome. Representative SSCP patterns from HPV16 variants were further characterized by direct DNA sequencing of the PCR products. Relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated by Cox regression analysis. RESULTS Prototype-like variants accounted for 79% of the HPV16 detected in university students and 86% of the virus detected in patients presenting to the sexually transmitted disease clinic. CIN 2-3 was confirmed by biopsy in nine of 57 HPV16-positive women attending the university and in 10 of 66 HPV16-positive women presenting to the sexually transmitted disease clinic. Among university students, those with HPV16 nonprototype-like variants were 6.5 (95% CI = 1.6-27.2) times more likely to develop CIN 2-3 than those with prototype-like variants. A similar association was observed among women presenting to the sexually transmitted disease clinic (RR = 4.5; 95% CI = 0.9-23.8). CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that the risk of developing CIN 2-3 is not the same with all variants of HPV16 and that nonprototype-like variants confer a greater risk compared with prototype-like variants. The important genomic differences underlying this increased risk of CIN 2-3 remain to be determined.
Promoting academic integrity among health care students.

Cheating is prevalent among health sciences students and remains largely undetected in most scenarios. [1][1],[2][2] Although cheating is defined on a continuum based on intent, ranging from “negligent” or “accidental” to “dishonest,” it is important for faculty to be aware of ways that
Dietary restriction involves NAD+-dependent mechanisms and a shift toward oxidative metabolism

Interventions that slow aging and prevent chronic disease may come from an understanding of how dietary restriction (DR) increases lifespan. Mechanisms proposed to mediate DR longevity include reduced mTOR signaling, activation of the NAD+‐dependent deacylases known as sirtuins, and increases in NAD+ that derive from higher levels of respiration. Here, we explored these hypotheses in Caenorhabditis elegans using a new liquid feeding protocol. DR lifespan extension depended upon a group of regulators that are involved in stress responses and mTOR signaling, and have been implicated in DR by some other regimens [DAF‐16 (FOXO), SKN‐1 (Nrf1/2/3), PHA‐4 (FOXA), AAK‐2 (AMPK)]. Complete DR lifespan extension required the sirtuin SIR‐2.1 (SIRT1), the involvement of which in DR has been debated. The nicotinamidase PNC‐1, a key NAD+ salvage pathway component, was largely required for DR to increase lifespan but not two healthspan indicators: movement and stress resistance. Independently of pnc‐1, DR increased the proportion of respiration that is coupled to ATP production but, surprisingly, reduced overall oxygen consumption. We conclude that stress response and NAD+‐dependent mechanisms are each critical for DR lifespan extension, although some healthspan benefits do not require NAD+ salvage. Under DR conditions, NAD+‐dependent processes may be supported by a DR‐induced shift toward oxidative metabolism rather than an increase in total respiration.
Preoperative lanreotide treatment in acromegalic patients with macroadenomas increases short-term postoperative cure rates: a prospective, randomised trial.

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether 4-month preoperative lanreotide treatment would improve the surgical cure rate of newly diagnosed acromegalic patients with macroadenomas. DESIGN A prospective, randomised study. METHODS After a baseline evaluation, patients were randomly assigned to 4-month preoperative treatment with lanreotide (starting with 30 mg/2 weeks i.m. and increasing to 30 mg/week i.m. at week 8 if mean GH >2.5 microg/l on GH day curves; pretreatment group, Group 1) or to transsphenoidal surgery (direct surgery group, Group 2). Cure was evaluated 4 months postoperatively primarily by fasting IGF1 less than or equal to age-adjusted upper limit of normal. RESULTS A pool of 108 patients was randomly divided into two groups. Five patients in each group were lost to follow-up during the study period, so 49 patients in each group were analysed. At baseline, no difference was observed between the two groups. Cure was established in 24 of 49 (49.0%, 95% confidence interval (CI), 35.0-63.0%) pretreated patients (Group 1) versus 9 of 49 (18.4%, 95% CI, 7.6-29.2%) direct surgery patients (Group 2; P=0.001). Surgical morbidity was recorded in 12 patients (12.2%) and was similar in Group 1 and 2 patients (14.3 and 10.2% respectively; P=0.538). The postoperative hospital stay was similar between groups: being 4.5+/-1.6 days in Group 1 vs 4.8+/-1.9 days in Group 2 (P=0.328). CONCLUSIONS Pretreatment with lanreotide before transsphenoidal surgery improves surgical cure rates in patients with GH-secreting pituitary macroadenomas. Pretreatment does not affect surgical complications or duration of hospital stay (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00993356).
A Formalization of Relative Local Tempo Variations in Collections of Performances

Multiple performances of the same piece share similarities, but also show relevant dissimilarities. With regard to the latter, analyzing and quantifying variations in collections of performances is useful to understand how a musical piece is typically performed, how naturally sounding new interpretations could be rendered, or what is peculiar about a particular performance. However, as there is no formal ground truth as to what these variations should look like, it is a challenge to provide and validate analysis methods for this. In this paper, we focus on relative local tempo variations in collections of performances. We propose a way to formally represent relative local tempo variations, as encoded in warping paths of aligned performances, in a vector space. This enables using statistics for analyzing tempo variations in collections of performances. We elaborate the computation and interpretation of the mean variation and the principal modes of variation. To validate our analysis method despite the absence of a ground truth, we present results on artificially generated data, representing several categories of local tempo variations. Finally, we show how our method can be used for analyzing to realworld data and discuss potential applications.
Video Game Control Dimensionality Analysis

In this paper we have studied the video games control dimensionality and its effects on the traditional way of interpreting difficulty and familiarity in games. This paper presents the findings in which we have studied the Xbox 360 console's games control dimensionality. Multivariate statistical operations were performed on the collected data from 83 different games of Xbox 360. It was found that the player's perceived level of familiarity and difficulty can be influenced by the game control dimensionality. We also found that the perceived difficulty varies with control dimensionality and that the familiarity tends to show no relation to the user's perceived difficulty. A way to measure and better understand familiarity and difficulty for games using the control dimensionality can thus give a better interpretation of different genres of games to its players and also to the game designers for further improvements in games' design. Positive transfer of this could bring forward new knowledge for game designers to augment learning of different genres of games.