Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Smoking Status, Mental Disorders and Emotional and Behavioural Problems in Young People: Child and Adolescent Component of the National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing

Objective: To examine the relationship between smoking behaviour, mental disorders and emotional and behavioural problems in a nationally representative sample of young people. Method: Data were taken from the child and adolescent component of the National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing which assessed mental health problems in two main ways: using a fully structured interview (the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children) and using the Child Behaviour Checklist and the Youth Self Report, which assess emotional and behavioural problems on a dimensional scale. The relationship between smoking and mental health problems was assessed using logistic regression. Results: Among young people with conduct disorder 72% had smoked in the last 30 days, 46% of young people with depressive disorder, and 38% among young people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This compared with 21% of young people with none of these disorders. Odds ratios (OR) for current smoking were consistently elevated for young people with mental health problems after adjusting for demographic and socio-economic factors across all measures of mental health used. The OR for current smoking in young people with parent-reported externalizing behaviours in the clinical range was 4.5 (95%CI: 3.1–6.8), and for young people with parent-reported internalizing problems in the clinical range the OR was 2.7 (95%CI: 1.8–4.0). Young people with mental health problems started smoking on average at a younger age, were more likely to progress to current smoking, and smoked on average a higher number of cigarettes per day. Conclusions: After adjusting for demographic and socio-economic factors, young people with mental health problems were more likely to start smoking, progress to daily smoking, and smoke more heavily. Mental illness is an important issue to consider in tobacco control in young people.
NITROGEN FERTILIZER EFFECTS ON BLACK CHERRY (PRUNUS SEROTINA EHRH) REGENERATION IN ALLEGHENY HARDWOOD FORESTS

viii Chapter 1. Literature Review . 1 Background of Study Area: Allegheny Plateau . 1 Geology and Climate of Allegheny Plateau . 1 Soils of the Allegheny Plateau . 2 History of Black Cherry and Nitrogen Deposition on the Allegheny Plateau . 5 History of Nitrogen Deposition . 8 The Nitrogen Cycle and Deposition . 11 Changes in Black Cherry Vitality and Regeneration . 13 Atmospheric Deposition Changes . 17 Chapter 2. Manuscript: Nitrogen fertilizer effects on black cherry (Prunus serotina Ehrh) regeneration in Allegheny Hardwood Forests . 19 Introduction . 19 Methods. 24 Site Establishment – Low N-Fertilized Sites . 24 Site Establishment –High N-Fertilized Areas . 25 Field Methods and Data Collection . 26 Treatment – Low N-Fertilized Sites . 26 Treatment – High N-Fertilized Areas . 26 Regeneration Measurements – Low N-Fertilized Sites . 27 Regeneration Measurements – High N-fertilized Areas . 27 iv Soil Measurements – Low N-Fertilized Sites . 27 Soil Measurements – High N-Fertilized Areas . 29 Overstory MeasurementsLow N-Fertilized Sites . 29 Overstory Measurements – High N-Fertilized Areas . 30 Experimental Design and Statistical Analyses . 31 Results . 31 Regeneration – Low N-Fertilized Sites . 32 Regeneration – High N-Fertilized Areas . 33 Soil Measurements – Low N-Fertilized Sites . 34 Soil Measurements – High N-Fertilized Areas . 35 Overstory MeasurementsLow N-Fertilized Sites . 36 Overstory Measurements – High N-Fertilized Areas . 37 Discussion . 37 Regeneration . 37 Soil and Overstory . 40 Conclusion . 44 References . 62 Appendix . 73 Vita . 86
Comparing contextual and non-contextual features in ANNs for movie rating prediction

Contextual recommendation goes beyond traditional models by incorporating additional information. Context aware recommender systems (CARs) correspond to not only the user’s preference profile but also consider the given situation and context. However, the selection and incorporation of optimal contextual features in context aware recommender systems is always challenging. In this paper we evaluate different representations (feature sets) from the given dataset (LDOS-CoMoDa) for contextual recommendations, in particular looking into movie rating prediction as a subproblem of recommendation. We further crosscompare these representations to select useful and relevant features and their combination. We also compare the performance of standard matrix factorization to Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in CARs. Our evaluation shows that dynamic, contextual features are dominant compared to non-contextual ones for the given task in the given data set. We also show that ANNs slightly outperform matrix factorization approaches typically used in CARs.
Safe acting and manipulation in human environments: A key concept for robots in our society

In this paper we review our work on safe acting and manipulation in human environments. In order for a robot to be able to safely interact with its environment it is primary to be able to react to unforeseen events in real-time on basically all levels of abstraction. Having this goal in mind, our contributions reach from fundamental understanding of human injury due to robot-human collisions as the underlying metric for “safe” behavior, various interaction control schemes that ground on the basic components impedance control and collision behavior, to real-time motion planning and behavior based control as an interface level for task planning. A significant amount of this work has found found its way into international standardization committees, products, and was applied in numerous real-world applications.
Minimal Inter-Fractional Fiducial Migration during Image-Guided Lung Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy Using SuperLock Nitinol Coil Fiducial Markers

Objectives Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is being increasingly used for the treatment of patients with lung cancer or lung metastasis who are medically unfit to undergo resection. In order to improve accuracy and confidence in targeting tumors, many centers rely on fiducial implantation. We evaluated the migration of a novel fiducial marker specifically designed for lung tissue implanted via electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy (ENB). Methods We retrospectively quantified the individual and group migrations of SuperLock nitinol coil fiducials for 15 patients receiving lung stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), in order to evaluate the reliability of using these fiducials as a target surrogate for cases where tumors cannot be clearly delineated on cone beam CTs (CBCTs). For each fraction, we compared the individual and group migrations of the fiducials between the planning CT and the acquired CBCT. The group migration was defined as the distance between the centroids of the fiducial group and GTV. Results A total of 16 lung targets were included in our study for these 15 patients (one patient with two targets). Of 55 fiducials placed, we observed a 100% retention rate. The mean individual migration was 1.87 mm (range, 0.63–5.25 mm) with a standard deviation of 1.26 mm. The mean group migration was 1.94 mm (range, 0.03–6.19 mm) with a standard deviation of 1.45 mm. Overall, there was minimal change in the relative locations of the markers with respect to each other, as well as to the target. Conclusions We found that the SuperLock nitinol coil fiducial marker positions are stable throughout the radiation treatment, and can be used as a reliable surrogate to target, and to avoid geometric misses during gated treatments.
The efficacy of azathioprine for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: a 30 year review

Background: There are limited data on factors predicting response to azathioprine and uncertainty regarding the optimal duration of treatment. Patients and methods: The notes of patients attending the Oxford IBD clinic from 1968 to 1999 were reviewed. Remission was defined as no need for oral steroids for at least three months and relapse was defined as active disease requiring steroids. Results: A total of 622 of 2205 patients were treated with azathioprine (272 Crohn's disease, 346 ulcerative colitis, and four indeterminate colitis). Mean duration of the initial course of treatment was 634 days. The overall remission rates were 45% for Crohn's disease and 58% for ulcerative colitis. For the 424 patients who received more than six months of treatment, remission rates were 64% and 87%, respectively. Factors favouring remission were ulcerative colitis (p=0.0001), lower white blood cell (WBC) or neutrophil count (p=0.0001), higher mean cell volume (p=0.0001), and older age (p=0.05). For Crohn's disease, colonic disease favoured remission (p=0.03). Factors that were not significant were age, sex, lymphocyte count, and dose (mg/kg). The proportion of patients remaining in remission at one, three, and five years was 0.95, 0.69, and 0.55, respectively. The chance of remaining in remission was higher if WBC was less than 5×109 (p=0.03) and in male patients (p=0.01; Crohn's disease only). There was no difference in relapse rates between Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. After stopping azathioprine, the proportion of patients remaining in remission at one, three, and five years was 0.63, 0.44, and 0.35 (222 patients). Duration of azathioprine treatment did not affect the relapse rate after stopping treatment (p=0.68). Conclusions: Azathioprine is effective treatment for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. The efficacy of azathioprine is reasonably well sustained over five years.
Spatial filtering and spatial primitives in early vision: an explanation of the Zöllner–Judd class of geometrical illusion

The apparent length and orientation of short lines is altered when they abut against oblique lines (the Zöllner and Judd illusions). Here we present evidence that the length and orientation biases are geometrically related and probably depend upon the same underlying mechanism. Measurements were done with an ‘H’ figure, in which the apparent length and orientation of the cross-bar was assessed by the method of adjustment while the orientation of the outer flanking lines was varied. When the flanking lines are oblique the apparent length of the central line is reduced and its orientation is shifted so that it appears more nearly at right-angles to the obliques than is in fact the case. Measurements of the orientation and length effects were made in three observers, over a range of flanking-line angles (90, 63, 45, 34 and 27 deg) and central line lengths (9, 17, 33 and 67 arc min). The biases increased with the tilt of the flanking-lines, and decreased with central line length. The extent of the length bias could be accurately predicted from the angular shift by simple trigonometry. We describe physiological and computational models to account for the relation between the orientation and length biases.
Causes Replication Catastrophe and Antitumor Effects through CHK 1-Dependent Mechanisms

CHK1 is a multifunctional protein kinase integral to both the cellular response to DNA damage and control of the number of active replication forks. CHK1 inhibitors are currently under investigation as chemopotentiating agents due to CHK1's role in establishing DNA damage checkpoints in the cell cycle. Here, we describe the characterization of a novel CHK1 inhibitor, LY2606368, which as a single agent causes double-stranded DNA breakage while simultaneously removing the protection of the DNAdamage checkpoints. The action of LY2606368 is dependent upon inhibition of CHK1 and the corresponding increase in CDC25A activation of CDK2, which increases the number of replication forks while reducing their stability. Treatment of cells with LY2606368 results in the rapid appearance of TUNEL and pH2AX-positive double-stranded DNA breaks in the S-phase cell population. Loss of the CHK1-dependent DNA damage checkpoints permits cells with damaged DNA to proceed into early mitosis and die. The majority of treated mitotic nuclei consist of extensively fragmented chromosomes. Inhibition of apoptosis by the caspase inhibitor Z-VAD-FMK had no effect on chromosome fragmentation, indicating that LY2606368 causes replication catastrophe. Changes in the ratio of RPA2 to phosphorylated H2AX following LY2606368 treatment further support replication catastrophe as the mechanism of DNA damage. LY2606368 shows similar activity in xenograft tumormodels, which results in significant tumor growth inhibition. LY2606368 is a potent representative of a novel class of drugs for the treatment of cancer that acts through replication catastrophe. Mol Cancer Ther; 14(9); 1–
Synchronized Control of Dual Linear Motors Position Servo System Based on Fuzzy Self-Learning Compensation

This paper introduces the position synchronized control strategy that meets position tracking performance and the closed loop robustness to external disturbance in dual linear motors servo system. In order to achieve the desired dynamic synchronized performance for dual position servo axes in machining, the same position feedback controller is used to single linear motor position servo axis independently, and an electrical cross-coupled control algorithms based on fuzzy self-learning are applied to dual linear motor position servo system. The simulation results show that proposed method is effective on improving synchronized performance
Managing urine leakage following laparoscopic radical prostatectomy with active suction of the prevesical space

Introduction Urine leakage following laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) is a possible complication that may herald chronic urine incontinence. Intraoperative measures aiming to prevent this is not standardised. Aim Presentation of experience with active suction of the prevesical space in managing postoperative urine leakage. Material and methods At the Department of Urology, where laparoscopy of the upper abdomen and open RP were performed, a protocol for extraperitoneal LRP was established in 8/2008. Until 5/2011, 154 LRPs have been performed. Urine leakage from a suction drain appeared in 9 cases (5.8%). Permanent active suction (with a machine for Büllae thoracic drainage) of the prevesical space with negative pressure of 7-12 cm of H2O was started immediately. Results Urine leakage started after a mean of 0.9 (0-2) days postoperatively and stopped after a mean of 8.1 (15-42) days. Leakage stopped with only suctioning in 7 cases. In one case, open re-anastomosis was performed on the 7th postoperative day (POD). In another case, ineffective active suction was replaced on the 10th POD by needle vented suction without effect and the leakage stopped following gradual shortening of the drain up to the 15th POD. Conclusions Active suction of the prevesical space seems to be an effective intervention to stop postoperative urine leakage after laparoscopic radical prostatectomy.
Human Papillomavirus Infection in HIV-1 Infected Women in Catalonia (Spain): Implications for Prevention of Cervical Cancer

Background High-risk human Papillomavirus infection is a necessary factor for cervical squamous intraepithelial lesions and invasive cervical cancer. In HIV-1-infected women, HPV infection is more prevalent and a higher risk of cervical cancer has been identified. We aimed to calculate the prevalence of infection by HR-HPV, determine the factors associated with this infection and abnormal cytology findings and to describe the history of cervical cancer screening in HIV-1-infected women. Methods We enrolled 479 HIV-1–infected women from the PISCIS cohort. Each patient underwent a gynecological check-up, PAP smear, HPV AND Hybrid capture, HPV genotyping, and colposcopy and biopsy, if necessary. We applied questionnaires to obtain information on sociodemographic, behavioral, clinical, and cervical screening variables. We present a cross-sectional analysis. Results Median age was 42 years. The prevalence of HR-HPV infection was 33.2% and that of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) was 3.8%. The most common genotypes were 16(23%), 53(20.3%), and 52(16.2%). The factor associated with HR-HPV infection was age <30 years (odds ratio[OR],2.5; 95%confidence interval[CI],1.1–5.6). The factors associated with the presence of HSIL or low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) were CD4T-lymphocyte count <200cells/mm3 versus >500cells/mm3 (OR,8.4; 95%CI,3.7–19.2), HIV-1 viral load >10,000copies/mL versus <400copies/mL (OR,2.1; 95%CI,1.0–4.4), and use of oral contraceptives (OR,2.0; 95%CI,1.0–3.9). Sixty percent of HIV-1–infected women had had one Pap smear within the last 2 years. Conclusions The high prevalence of HPV infection and cervical lesions in the HIV-1–infected population in Catalonia, as well as the low coverage and frequency of screening in this group, means that better preventive efforts are necessary and should include vaccination against HPV, better accessibility to screening programs, training of health care professionals, and specific health education for HIV-1–infected women.
Minimum Classification Error Training of Hidden Markov Models for Sequential Data in the Wavelet Domain

In the last years there has been increasing interest in developing discriminative training methods for hidden Markov models, with the aim to improve their performance in classi cation and pattern recognition tasks. Although several advances have been made in this area, they have been targeted almost exclusively to standard models whose conditional observations are given by a Gaussian mixture density. In parallel with this development, a special kind of hidden Markov models de ned in the wavelet domain has found wide-spread use in the signal and image processing community. Nevertheless, these models have been typically restricted to fully-tied parameter training using a single sequence and maximum likelihood estimates. This paper takes a step forward in the development of sequential pattern recognizers based on wavelet-domain hidden Markov models by introducing a new discriminative training method. The learning strategy relies on the minimum classi cation error approach and provides reestimation formulas for fully non-tied models. Numerical experiments on a simple phoneme recognition task show important improvement over the recognition rate achieved by the same models trained under the maximum likelihood estimation approach.
Markers for bacterial infection in children with fever without source

Objectives To compare the diagnostic properties of procalcitonin (PCT), C reactive protein (CRP), total white blood cells count (WBC), absolute neutrophil count (ANC) and clinical evaluation to detect serious bacterial infection (SBI) in children with fever without source. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Paediatric emergency department of a tertiary care hospital. Participants Children aged 1–36 months with fever and no identified source of infection. Intervention Complete blood count, blood culture, urine analysis and culture. PCT and CRP were also measured and SBI probability evaluated clinically with a visual analogue scale before disclosing tests results. Outcome measure Area under the curves (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic curves. Results Among the 328 children included in the study, 54 (16%) were diagnosed with an SBI: 48 urinary tract infections, 4 pneumonias, 1 meningitis and 1 bacteraemia. The AUC were similar for PCT (0.82; 95% CI 0.77 to 0.86), CRP (0.88; 95% CI 0.84 to 0.91), WBC (0.81; 95% CI 0.76 to 0.85) and ANC (0.80; 95% CI 0.75 to 0.84). The only statistically significant difference was between CRP and ANC (Δ AUC 0.08; 95% CI 0.01 to 0.16). It is important to note that all the surrogate markers were statistically superior to the clinical evaluation that had an AUC of only 0.59 (95% CI 0.54 to 0.65). Conclusion The study data demonstrate that CRP, PCT, WBC and ANC had almost similar diagnostic properties and were superior to clinical evaluation in predicting SBI in children aged 1 month to 3 years.
Judgment Extremity and Accuracy Under Epistemic vs. Aleatory Uncertainty

People view uncertain events as knowable in principle (epistemic uncertainty), as fundamentally random (aleatory uncertainty), or as some mixture of the two. We show that people make more extreme probability judgments (i.e., closer to 0 or 1) for events they view as entailing more epistemic uncertainty and less aleatory uncertainty. We demonstrate this pattern in a domain where there is agreement concerning the balance of evidence (pairings of teams according to their seed in a basketball tournament) but individual differences in the perception of the epistemicness/aleatoriness of that domain (Study 1), across a range of domains that vary in their perceived epistemicness/aleatoriness (Study 2), in a single judgment task for which we only vary the degree of randomness with which events are selected (Study 3), and when we prime participants to see events as more epistemic or aleatory (Study 4). Decomposition of accuracy scores suggests that the greater judgment extremity of more epistemic events can manifes.
Proteomic Analysis of the Dysferlin Protein Complex Unveils Its Importance for Sarcolemmal Maintenance and Integrity

Dysferlin is critical for repair of muscle membranes after damage. Mutations in dysferlin lead to a progressive muscular dystrophy. Recent studies suggest additional roles for dysferlin. We set out to study dysferlin's protein-protein interactions to obtain comprehensive knowledge of dysferlin functionalities in a myogenic context. We developed a robust and reproducible method to isolate dysferlin protein complexes from cells and tissue. We analyzed the composition of these complexes in cultured myoblasts, myotubes and skeletal muscle tissue by mass spectrometry and subsequently inferred potential protein functions through bioinformatics analyses. Our data confirm previously reported interactions and support a function for dysferlin as a vesicle trafficking protein. In addition novel potential functionalities were uncovered, including phagocytosis and focal adhesion. Our data reveal that the dysferlin protein complex has a dynamic composition as a function of myogenic differentiation. We provide additional experimental evidence and show dysferlin localization to, and interaction with the focal adhesion protein vinculin at the sarcolemma. Finally, our studies reveal evidence for cross-talk between dysferlin and its protein family member myoferlin. Together our analyses show that dysferlin is not only a membrane repair protein but also important for muscle membrane maintenance and integrity.
A New Approach for Distributed Main Memory Database Systems: A Causal Commit Protocol

SUMMARY Distributed database systems require a commit process to preserve the ACID property of transactions executed on a number of system sites. With the appearance of main memory database system, the database processingtime has been reduced in the order of magnitude, since the database access does not incur any disk access at all. However, when it comes to distributed main memory database systems, the distributed commit process is still very slow since the disk logging at several sites has to precede the transaction commit. In this paper, we re-evaluate various distributed commit protocols and come up with a causal commit protocol suitable for distributed main memory database systems. To evaluate the performance of the proposed commit protocol, extensive simulation study has been performed. The simulation results confirm that the new protocol greatly reduces the time to commit the distributed transactions without any consistency problem.