Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
5-Fluorouracil plus leucovorin is an effective adjuvant chemotherapy in curatively resected stage III colon cancer: long-term follow-up results of the adjCCA-01 trial.

BACKGROUND Adjuvant postoperative treatment with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin in curatively resected stage III colon cancer significantly reduces the risk of cancer recurrences and improves survival. The impact of 5-FU plus leucovorin on survival and tumor recurrence was analyzed in a long-term follow-up study in comparison with the effects of 5-FU plus levamisole in the prospective multicenter trial adjCCA-01. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients with a curatively resected stage III (International Union Against Cancer) colon cancer were stratified according to tumor, node and grading category and randomly assigned to receive one of the two adjuvant treatment schemes: 5-FU 400 mg/m2 body surface area intravenously in the first chemotherapy course, then 450 mg/m2 x 5 days, plus leucovorin 100 mg/m2, 12 cycles (arm A), or 5-FU plus levamisole (Moertel scheme; arm B). RESULTS Six hundred and eighty (96.9%) of 702 patients enrolled into this study were eligible. To date, 261 patients have died, 117 on arm A and 144 on arm B (P = 0.007). After a median follow-up time of 82 months, the 5-FU plus leucovorin combination significantly improved disease-free survival [79.8 months in arm A versus 69.3 months in arm B (P = 0.012)] and significantly increased median overall survival (88.9 months in arm A versus 78.6 months in arm B; P = 0.003). Adjuvant treatment with 5-FU plus levamisole as well as 5-FU plus leucovorin was generally well tolerated; only a minority of patients experienced grade 3 and 4 toxicities. CONCLUSIONS After curative resection of a stage III colon cancer, adjuvant treatment with 5-FU plus leucovorin is generally well tolerated. This long-term follow-up study demonstrates that adjuvant treatment with 5-FU plus leucovorin given for 12 cycles is significantly more effective than 5-FU plus levamisole (Moertel scheme) in reducing tumor relapse and improving survival.
Stem cell microencapsulation for phenotypic control, bioprocessing, and transplantation

Cell microencapsulation has been utilized for decades as a means to shield cells from the external environment while simultaneously permitting transport of oxygen, nutrients, and secretory molecules. In designing cell therapies, donor primary cells are often difficult to obtain and expand to appropriate numbers, rendering stem cells an attractive alternative due to their capacities for self‐renewal, differentiation, and trophic factor secretion. Microencapsulation of stem cells offers several benefits, namely the creation of a defined microenvironment which can be designed to modulate stem cell phenotype, protection from hydrodynamic forces and prevention of agglomeration during expansion in suspension bioreactors, and a means to transplant cells behind a semi‐permeable barrier, allowing for molecular secretion while avoiding immune reaction. This review will provide an overview of relevant microencapsulation processes and characterization in the context of maintaining stem cell potency, directing differentiation, investigating scalable production methods, and transplanting stem cells for clinically relevant disorders. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 667–682. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Automated WLAN calibration with a backtracking particle filter

Location information is one of the most important information sources in ubiquitous computing scenarios. However, a cheap and global indoor positioning solution offering a sufficiently high accuracy and precision for most ubiquitous computing applications without much calibration effort is not yet available. In this paper we present a backtracking particle filter for sensor fusion of accelerometer, magnetometer and WLAN signal strength measurements on a smartphone, offering high indoor tracking accuracy and precision. Even more, we show that backtracking leads to high quality track information where no WLAN is available. This track information is sufficiently accurate to provide for automated calibration or even the creation of a complete new WLAN fingerprint database. A ground truth position is not needed at all. The particle filter and the WLAN calibration technique are evaluated with high quality ground truth in a test environment at our site and the feasibility of the algorithms is demonstrated.
Role of a Decreased Expression of the Local Renin-Angiotensin System in the Etiology of Cerebral Aneurysms

Background—Local renin-angiotensin systems (RAS) have been implicated as playing an important role in vascular remodeling. The relationship of this system to the etiology of cerebral aneurysm was investigated. Methods and Results—The aneurysmal wall from patients with a ruptured or unruptured cerebral aneurysm and the cortical cerebral artery in control patients with head trauma or a glioma were taken during surgery for study. Local RAS were evaluated by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and/or immunohistochemistry. RT-PCR analysis revealed a significantly decreased expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), angiotensin type 1 (AT1) receptor, basic fibroblast growth factor, platelet-derived growth factor-AA, and tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinases-1 mRNA in the aneurysmal wall as compared with the control cortical arterial wall. Immunohistochemistry also revealed a decreased expression of ACE, AT1 receptor, and angiotensin II in the aneurysmal wall. Conclusion—Expression of local RAS was decreased in the aneurysmal wall, which may induce aneurysm formation caused by a lack of vascular remodeling that prevents the arterial wall from thickening under increased hemodynamic stress. This is the first report that suggests that a decreased expression of local RAS plays a part in the pathogenesis of any disease.
Adapted Approach for Fruit Disease Identification using Images

Diseases in fruit cause devastating problem in economic losses and production in agricultural industry worldwide. In this paper, an adaptive approach for the identification of fruit diseases is proposed and experimentally validated. The image processing based proposed approach is composed of the following main steps; in the first step K-Means clustering technique is used for the defect segmentation, in the second step some state of the art features are extracted from the segmented image, and finally images are classified into one of the classes by using a Multi-class Support Vector Machine. We have considered diseases of apple as a test case and evaluated our approach for three types of apple diseases namely apple scab, apple blotch and apple rot. Our experimental results express that the proposed solution can significantly support accurate detection and automatic identification of fruit diseases. The classification accuracy for the proposed solution is achieved up to 93%.
Urban Park Development and Pediatric Obesity Rates: A Quasi-Experiment Using Electronic Health Record Data

Introduction: Childhood obesity affects ~20% of children in the United States. Environmental influences, such as parks, are linked with increased physical activity (PA). Objective: To examine whether changes in Body Mass Index (BMI) z-score were associated with construction of a new park. Methods: A quasi-experimental design was used to determine whether living in proximity of a park was associated with a reduction in BMI z-score. Children were selected from health clinics within an 11 mile radius of the park. A repeated-measure ANOVA was employed for analysis of the relationship between exposure (new park) and BMI z-score. Results: Participants were 1443 (median age 10.3 range (2–17.9 years), BMI: z-score 0.84 ± 1.09) African American (77.4%) adolescents. Change in BMI z-score was not statistically different for children living at different distances from the park after controlling for age, gender, race, ethnicity, or payer type (p = 0.4482). We did observe a small 0.03 increase in BMI z-score from pre- to post-park (p = 0.0007). There was a significant positive association between child’s baseline age and BMI z-score (p < 0.001). Conclusions: This study found proximity to a park was not associated with reductions in BMI z-score. Additional efforts to understand the complex relationship between park proximity, access, and PA are warranted.
A 6-to-32 Gb/s voltage-mode transmitter with scalable supply, voltage swing, and pre-emphasis in 65-nm CMOS

A voltage-mode (VM) transmitter which offers a wide operation range of 6-to-32 Gb/s, controllable pre-emphasis equalization and output voltage swing without altering output impedance, and a power supply scalability is presented. A quarter-rate clocking architecture is employed in order to maximize the scalability and energy efficiency across the various operating conditions. A P-over-N VM driver is used for CMOS compatibility and wide voltage-swing range required for various I/O standards. Two supply regulators calibrate the output impedance of the VM driver across the wide swing and pre-emphasis range. A single phase-locked loop is used to provide a wide frequency range. The prototype chip is fabricated in 65-nm CMOS technology and occupies active area of 0.48×0.36 mm2. The proposed transmitter achieves 250-to-600-mV single-ended swing and exhibits the energy efficiency of 2.10-to-2.93 pJ/bit across the data rate of 6-to-32 Gb/s.
Modelling Data Segmentation for Image Retrieval Systems

The analysis of a large amount of data with complex structures is a challenging task in engineering and scientific applications. The data segmentation task usually involves either probabilistic or statistical approaches, however, global minima disadvantage is still present in each mentioned approaches. A combination of these two approaches is based on subspace arrangements avoiding global minima in classification methods. In this paper we propose a new approach for a generalized principal component analysis algorithm (GPCA) improving knowledge representation in images. The linear algebra concepts achieve an abstraction of data sets whose items as images, documents or stellar spectra could be handled providing a knowledge description for image classification process of involved data. We describe a solution to optimization GPCA function using Gutmann Algorithm for segmentation data sets.
Arginine Restores Cholinergic Relaxation of Hypercholesterolemic Rabbit Thoracic Aorta

BackgroundReduced synthesis of endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) may explain impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilation in hypercholesterolemia. Accordingly, we designed studies to determine if endothelium-dependent relaxation in hypercholesterolemic rabbits may be restored by supplying L-arginine, the precursor of EDRF. Methods and ResultsNormal or hypercholesterolemic rabbits received intravenous L-arginine (10 mg/kg/min) or vehicle for 70 minutes. Subsequently, animals were killed, thoracic aortas were harvested, and vascular rings were studied in vitro. Rings were contracted by norepinephrine and relaxed by acetylcholine chloride or sodium nitroprusside. Vasorelaxation was quantified by determining the maximal response (expressed as percent relaxation of the contraction) and the ED50 (dose of drug inducing 50%1 relaxation; expressed as -log M). In vessels from hypercholesterolemic animals receiving vehicle, there was a fivefold rightward shift in sensitivity to acetylcholine compared with normal animals (p = 0.05, n = 5 in each group). In vessels from hypercholesterolemic animals, L-arginine augmented the maximal response to acetylcholine (83±16% versus 60±15%, p = 0.04 versus vehicle) and increased the sensitivity to acetylcholine (ED50 value: 6.7±0.2 versus 6.2±0.2, p<0.05 versus vehicle). Arginine did not affect maximal and EC50 responses to acetylcholine in vessels from normal animals. Arginine did not potentiate endothelium-independent responses in either group. ConclusionsWe conclude that the endothelium-dependent relaxation is normalized in hypercholesterolemic rabbit thoracic aorta by in vivo exposure to L-arginine, the precursor for EDRF. (Circulation 1991;83:1057–1062)
Gram-Negative Multidrug-Resistant Organism Colonization in a US Military Healthcare Facility in Iraq

Objective. To investigate potential sources of gram-negative multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in a deployed US military healthcare facility. Design. Active surveillance. Methods. Swab sampling of patients, hospital personnel, and environmental surfaces was performed before the opening of a new medical treatment facility in Iraq and then serially for the next 6 months. Multidrug resistant isolates were genotypically characterized using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed to evaluate associations between patient characteristics and MDRO carriage. Setting. Deployed US military medical facility. Results. A total of 1,348 samples were obtained, yielding 654 isolates, 42 of which were MDROs. One hundred fifty-eight patients were sampled; swabs from 18 patients yielded 29 MDR isolates. Host nation patients comprised 89% of patients with MDROs and 37% of patients without MDROs (P < .001 ). Host nation patient status was also significantly associated with MDRO carriage in multivariate logistic regression analysis (adjusted odds ratio, 2.9; confidence interval, 1.3-6.3; P = .009). Bacteria with PFGE patterns matching those recovered from host nation patients were later isolated from environmental surfaces including recovery room patient monitors and the trauma bay floor. Conclusions. At this facility, MDRO isolation was predominantly obtained from newly admitted host nation patients,,which may reflect baseline colonization with MDROs in the community. Patient MDRO carriage was linked to subsequent environmental contamination. These findings support intensive infection control efforts in forward deployed facilities.
Parallel imaging with nonlinear reconstruction using variational penalties

A new approach based on nonlinear inversion for autocalibrated parallel imaging with arbitrary sampling patterns is presented. By extending the iteratively regularized Gauss–Newton method with variational penalties, the improved reconstruction quality obtained from joint estimation of image and coil sensitivities is combined with the superior noise suppression of total variation and total generalized variation regularization. In addition, the proposed approach can lead to enhanced removal of sampling artifacts arising from pseudorandom and radial sampling patterns. This is demonstrated for phantom and in vivo measurements. Magn Reson Med 67:34–41, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Supporting end-users in defining complex queries on evolving and domain-specific data models

To define queries on domain-specific data-structures, end-users have to be familiar with the underlying data model. This is challenging if the data model evolves continuously and through collaborative model management. While visual languages address this issue by providing strong guidance for non-technical end-users, they suffer from a limited expressiveness due to their focus on usability. Therefore, they are not applicable in cases where domain-experts have the need to dedline complex queries. This paper proposes an interactive and textual query editor which focuses on the formulation of complex queries and the familiarization of the end-user with the underlying data model during the query definition process. We demonstrate our approach by this query editor's application in the domain of Enterprise Architecture Management, where tech-savvy end-users need to define complex metrics based on an evolving enterprise architecture model.
A central institutional review board for multi-institutional trials.

These are difficult times for the nation's system of protection for human subjects in research.1–10 On the basis of a series of reports, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services concluded that institutional review boards (IRBs) are now forced to “review too much, too quickly, with too little expertise,” and with inadequate resources.6 One consequence is that there is minimal, often perfunctory, review of ongoing research. In addition, IRB members have become disillusioned as a result of both public criticism concerning the perceived failures of the boards and the increasing amount of .
Complex contagion and the weakness of long ties in social networks: revisited

Diseases, information and rumors could spread fast in social networks exhibiting the small world property. In the diffusion of these 'simple contagions', which can spread through a single contact, a small network diameter and the existence of weak ties in the network play important roles. Recent studies by sociologists [Centola and Macy 2007] have also explored 'complex contagions' in which multiple contacts are required for the spread of contagion. [Centola and Macy 2007] and [Romero et al. 2011] have shown that complex contagions exhibit different diffusion patterns than simple ones. In this paper, we study three small world models and provide rigorous analysis on the diffusion speed of a k-complex contagion, in which a node becomes active only when at least k of its neighbors are active. Diffusion of a complex contagion starts from a constant number of initial active nodes. We provide upper and lower bounds on the number of rounds it takes for the entire network to be activated. Our results show that compared to simple contagions, weak ties are not as effective in spreading complex contagions due to the lack of simultaneous active contacts; and the diffusion speed depends heavily on the the way weak ties are distributed in a network. We show that in Newman-Watts model with Ө(n) random edges added on top of a ring structure, the diffusion speed of a 2-complex contagion is Ω(3√n and O(5√n4logn) with high probability. In Kleinberg's small world model (in which Ө(n) random edges are added with a spatial distribution inversely proportional to the grid distance to the power of 2, on top of a 2-dimensional grid structure), the diffusion speed of a 2-complex contagion is O(log3.5n) and Ω (log n/log logn) with high probability. We also show a similar result for Kleinberg's hierarchical network model, in which random edges are added with a spatial distribution on their distance in a tree hierarchy. In this model the diffusion is fast with high probability bounded by O(logn) and Ω(logn/log logn), when the number of random edges issued by each node is Ө(log2n). We also generalize these results to k-complex contagions.
Reducing transitions on memory buses using sector-based encoding technique

In this paper, we introduce a class of irredundant low power encoding techniques for memory address buses. The basic idea is to partition the memory space into a number of sectors. These sectors can, for example, represent address spaces for the code, heap, and stack segments of one or more application programs. Each address is first dynamically mapped to the appropriate sector and then is encoded with respect to the sector head. Each sector head is updated based on the last accessed address in that sector. The result of this sector-based encoding technique is a reduction in the number of bus transitions when encoding consecutive addresses that access different sectors. Our proposed techniques have small power and delay overhead when compared with many of the existing methods in the literature. One of our proposed techniques is very suitable for encoding addresses that are sent from an on-chip cache to the main memory when multiple application programs are executing on the processor in a time-sharing basis. For a computer system without an on-chip cache, the proposed techniques decrease the switching activity of data address and multiplexed address buses by an average of 55% and 67%, respectively. For a system with on-chip cache, up to 55% transition reduction is achieved on a multiplexed address bus between the internal cache and the external memory. Assuming a 10 pF per line bus capacitance, we show that power reduction of up to 52% for an external data address bus and 42% for the multiplexed bus between cache and main memory is achieved using our methods.
Knowledge spillover in corporate financing networks: embeddedness and the firm's debt performance

Building on social embeddedness theory, we examine how the competencies and resources of one corporate actor in a network are transferred to another actor that uses them to enhance transactions with a third actor—a strategic process we dub ‘network transitivity. ’ Focusing on the properties of network transitivity in the context of small-firm corporate finance, we consider how embedded relations between a firm and its banks facilitate the firm's access to distinctive capabilities that enable it to strategically manage its trade-credit financing relationships. We apply theory and original case-study fieldwork to explore the types of resources and competencies available through bank–firm relationships and to derive hypotheses about how embedded bank–firm relationships affect the strategy of small- to medium-sized firms. Using a separate large-scale data set, we then test the generalizability of our hypotheses. Our qualitative analyses show that embedded bank–firm ties provide special governance arrangements that facilitate the firm's access to bank-centered informational and capital resources, which uniquely enhance the firm's ability to manage trade credit. Consistent with our arguments, our statistical analyses show that small- to medium-sized firms with embedded ties to their bankers were more likely to take lucrative early-payment trade discounts and avoid costly late-payment penalties than were similar firms that lacked embedded ties—suggesting that social embeddedness beneficially affects the financial performance of the firm. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
On the robustness of functional equations

Given a functional equation, such as /spl forall/x, y f(x)+f(y)=f(x+y), we study the following general question: When can the "for all" quantifiers be replaced by "for most" quantifiers without essentially changing the functions that are characterized by the property? When "for most" quantifiers are sufficient, we say that the functional equation is robust. We show conditions on functional equations of the form /spl forall/x, y F[f(x-y), f(x+y), f(x), f(y)]=0, where F is an algebraic function, that imply robustness. We then initiate a general study aimed at characterizing properties of functional equations that determine whether or not they are robust. Our results have applications to the area of self-testing/correcting programs-this paper provides results which show that the concept of self-testing/correcting has much broader applications than we previously understood. We show that self-testers and self-correctors can be found for many functions satisfying robust functional equations, including tan x, 1/1+cot x, Ax/1-Ax', cosh x. <<ETX>>