Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Arteriovenous Malformations of the Brain Remain Grading and Surgical Planning for Intracranial Arteriovenous Malformations

among the most complex and difficult lesions that cere-brovascular neurosurgeons must treat. Their successful obliteration requires intense preoperative planning, meticulous adherence to microneurosurgical technique, and state-of-the-art postoperative care. Preoperative planning, including therapies that can make difficult lesions more amenable to surgery (interventional neuroradiology and radiosurgery) are all part of the treatment algorithm for these lesions. Currently, the majority of neurosurgeons, interventional neurosurgeons, and interventional radiolo-gists who treat AVMs of the brain use the Spetzler–Martin grading system. 3 The Spetzler–Martin grading system is used to grade AVMs according to size, location, and ve-nous drainage. This grading system has, for over a decade, served as a mode of communication between neurosur-geons and other subspecialties involved in the treatment of these complex lesions. The initial step in grading an AVM has implications for surgical resectability and patient outcome. It is possible, by using adjuvant therapies including embolization and radiosurgery, to convert higher-grade lesions to lower-grade lesions that are more amenable to surgical obliteration. Once the decision has been made to resect an AVM surgically, the formal planning of the procedure should be performed. Prior to this step, all available imaging studies that could contribute to a successful surgical procedure should be obtained. These include MR imaging, MR angiography, CT scanning, CT angiography, and four-vessel angiography. Imaging data can then be used as a guide for resection. Once resection has begun, meticulous attention to the microneurosurgical procedure is imperative to a successful outcome. The goal is to resect the AVM without interfering with normal vascular supply and normal brain parenchyma. Once the patient has undergone resection of the AVM, postoperative care is as important in achieving a successful outcome. This monograph will describe the grading of cerebral AVMs, the successful planning and execution of resection of cerebral AVMs, and the postoperative care of these patients once they have undergone surgery. The Spetzler–Martin grading system was described more than 15 years ago and has become one of the most widely accepted and useful grading systems for the com-The treatment of arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) has evolved over the last 40 years. These complex vascular lesions remain among the most difficult lesions to treat. Successful treatment of AVMs of the brain includes extensive preoperative planning, multimodality treatment options, and modern postoperative surgical care. The advent of new technologies, including interventional neuroradiology and radiosurgery, has expanded the range of malformations that can be treated effectively and has had …
The Unreusability of Diversified Search Test Collections

Traditional “ad hoc” test collections, typically built based on depth100 pools, are often used a posteriori by non-contributors, i.e., research groups that did not contribute the pools. The Leave One Out (LOO) test is useful for testing whether the test collections are actually reusable: that is, whether the non-contributors can be evaluated fairly relative to the contributors’ official performances. In contrast, at the recent web search result diversification tasks of TREC and NTCIR, diversity test collections have been built using shallow pools: the pool depths lie between 20 and 40. Thus it is unlikely that these diversity test collections are reusable: in fact, the organisers of these diversity tasks never claimed that they are. Nevertheless, these collections are also used a posteriori by non-contributors. In light of this, Sakai et al. [21] demonstrated by means of LOO tests that the NTCIR-9 INTENT-1Chinese diversity test collection is not reusable, and also showed that condensed-list evaluation metrics generally provide better estimates of the noncontributors’ true performances than raw evaluation metrics. This paper generalises and strengthens their findings through LOO tests with the latest TREC 2012 diversity test collection.
Comparison of Treatment Outcomes of New Smear-Positive Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients by HIV and Antiretroviral Status in a TB/HIV Clinic, Malawi

Background Smear-positive pulmonary TB is the most infectious form of TB. Previous studies on the effect of HIV and antiretroviral therapy on TB treatment outcomes among these highly infectious patients demonstrated conflicting results, reducing understanding of important issues. Methods All adult smear-positive pulmonary TB patients diagnosed between 2008 and 2010 in Malawi’s largest public, integrated TB/HIV clinic were included in the study to assess treatment outcomes by HIV and antiretroviral therapy status using logistic regression. Results Of 2,361 new smear-positive pulmonary TB patients, 86% had successful treatment outcome (were cured or completed treatment), 5% died, 6% were lost to follow-up, 1% failed treatment, and 2% transferred-out. Overall HIV prevalence was 56%. After adjusting for gender, age and TB registration year, treatment success was higher among HIV-negative than HIV-positive patients (adjusted odds ratio 1.49; 95% CI: 1.14–1.94). Of 1,275 HIV-infected pulmonary TB patients, 492 (38%) received antiretroviral therapy during the study. Pulmonary TB patients on antiretroviral therapy were more likely to have successful treatment outcomes than those not on ART (adjusted odds ratio : 1.83; 95% CI: 1.29–2.60). Conclusion HIV co-infection was associated with poor TB treatment outcomes. Despite high HIV prevalence and the integrated TB/HIV setting, only a minority of patients started antiretroviral therapy. Intensified patient education and provider training on the benefits of antiretroviral therapy could increase antiretroviral therapy uptake and improve TB treatment success among these most infectious patients.
p53 Inhibits Hypoxia-inducible Factor-stimulated Transcription*

p53 is required for hypoxia-induced apoptosisin vivo, although the mechanism by which this occurs is not known. Conversely, induction of the hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) transactivator stimulates transcription of a number of genes crucial to survival of the hypoxic state. Here we demonstrate that p53 represses HIF-1-stimulated transcription. Although higher levels of p53 are required to inhibit HIF than are necessary to transcriptionally activate p53 target genes, these levels of p53 are similar to those that stimulate cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase, an early event in apoptosis. Transfection of full-length p300 stimulates both p53-dependent and HIF-dependent transcription but does not relieve p53-mediated inhibition of HIF. In contrast, a p300 fragment, which binds to p53 but not to HIF-1, prevents p53-dependent repression of HIF activity. Transcriptionally inactive p53, mutated in its DNA binding domain, retains the ability to block HIF transactivating activity, whereas a transcriptionally inactive double point mutant defective for p300 binding does not inhibit HIF. Finally, depletion of doxorubicin-induced endogenous p53 by E6 protein attenuates doxorubicin-stimulated inhibition of HIF, suggesting that a p53 level sufficient for HIF inhibition can be achieved in vivo. These data support a model in which stoichiometric binding of p53 to a HIF/p300 transcriptional complex mediates inhibition of HIF activity.
Three-Phase Modulated Pole Machine Topologies Utilizing Mutual Flux Paths

This paper discusses three-phase topologies for modulated pole machines (MPMs). The authors introduce a new three-phase topology, which takes advantage of mutual flux paths; this is analyzed using 3-D finite-element methods and compared to a three-phase topology using three single-phase units stacked axially. The results show that the new “combined-phase MPM” exhibits a greater torque density, while offering a reduction in the number of components. The results obtained from two prototypes are also presented to verify the concept; the results show that the “combined-phase” machine could provide both performance and constructional benefits over prior MPM topologies.
Immigration and National Wages: Clarifying the Theory and the Empirics

This paper estimates the effects of immigration on wages of native workers at the national U.S. level. Following Borjas (2003) we focus on national labor markets for workers of different skills and we enrich his methodology and refine previous estimates. We emphasize that a production function framework is needed to combine workers of different skills in order to evaluate the competition as well as cross-skill complementary effects of immigrants on wages. We also emphasize the importance (and estimate the value) of the elasticity of substitution between workers with at most a high school degree and those without one. Since the two groups turn out to be close substitutes, this strongly dilutes the effects of competition between immigrants and workers with no degree. We then estimate the substitutability between natives and immigrants and we find a small but significant degree of imperfect substitution which further decreases the competitive effect of immigrants. Finally, we account for the short run and long run adjustment of capital in response to immigration. Using our estimates and Census data we find that immigration (1990-2006) had small negative effects in the short run on native workers with no high school degree (-0.7%) and on average wages (-0.4%) while it had small positive effects on native workers with no high school degree (+0.3%) and on average native wages (+0.6%) in the long run. These results are perfectly in line with the estimated aggregate elasticities in the labor literature since Katz and Murphy (1992). We also find a wage effect of new immigrants on previous immigrants in the order of negative 6%.
The A3 Adenosine Receptor Is Highly Expressed in Tumor versus Normal Cells

Purpose: A3 adenosine receptor (A3AR) activation was shown to inhibit the growth of various tumor cells via the down-regulation of nuclear factor κB and cyclin D1. To additionally elucidate whether A3AR is a specific target, a survey of its expression in tumor versus adjacent normal cells was conducted. Experimental Design: A3AR mRNA expression in various tumor tissues was tested in paraffin-embedded slides using reverse transcription-PCR analysis. A comparison with A3AR expression in the relevant adjacent normal tissue or regional lymph node metastasis was performed. In addition, A3AR protein expression was studied in fresh tumors and was correlated with that of the adjacent normal tissue. Results: Reverse transcription-PCR analysis of colon and breast carcinoma tissues showed higher A3AR expression in the tumor versus adjacent non-neoplastic tissue or normal tissue. Additional analysis revealed that the lymph node metastasis expressed even more A3AR mRNA than the primary tumor tissue. Protein analysis of A3AR expression in fresh tumors derived from colon (n = 40) or breast (n = 17) revealed that 61% and 78% had higher A3AR expression in the tumor versus normal adjacent tissue, respectively. The high A3AR expression level in the tumor tissues was associated with elevated nuclear factor κB and cyclin D1 levels. High A3AR mRNA expression was also demonstrated in other solid tumor types. Conclusions: Primary and metastatic tumor tissues highly express A3AR indicating that high receptor expression is a characteristic of solid tumors. These findings and our previous data suggest A3AR as a potential target for tumor growth inhibition.
Containing guardbands

Reliability concerns may overtake conventional design constraints such as cost and performance because transistors in deep nano-CMOS era are increasingly susceptible to degradation effects. This made reliability become unsustainably expensive due to need for wider and wider guardbands (i.e. safety margins). It is in fact the time to reverse this trend: instead of widening guardbands, it is inevitable to contain them. In this work, we summarize three novel means to achieve this goal. Since the causes are of physical origin, it cannot be excluded that degradation effects influence (i.e. amplify or cancel) each other. Hence, we first investigate the interdependencies of degradation effects demonstrating that they should jointly and not separately be modeled towards designing smaller, yet sufficient guardbands. Then, we show how aging-aware logic synthesis based on our so-called degradation-aware cell libraries, enables designers to employ mature optimization algorithms available in the commercial synthesis tools to obtain more resilient circuits in which guardbands are inherently contained. Finally, instantaneous transistors aging is a recent discovery that bears a large potential for reliability optimization since it is hardly explored until now. Though aging in general has been extensively studied in last decade, investigating the impact of instantaneous aging on circuits' reliability is still in its infancy. In fact, this is a paradigm shift in aging from sole long-term reliability degradation, as in the traditional view, to short-term reliability degradation. We demonstrate how employing our physics-based aging models results in considerably smaller guardbands due to the high certainty compared to empirical aging models.
Using superparamagnetic iron oxide-enhanced MRI to differentiate metastatic hepatic tumors and nonsolid benign lesions.

OBJECTIVE We evaluated the ability of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO)-enhanced MRI to differentiate solid metastatic tumors and nonsolid benign lesions by clarifying the characteristic signal-intensity pattern of each lesion on SPIO-enhanced T2-weighted and heavily T1-weighted gradient-echo images. MATERIALS AND METHODS SPIO-enhanced MRI was performed using a 1.5-T system in 33 consecutive patients without cirrhosis who had 81 focal hepatic lesions (42 cysts, 13 hemangiomas, 26 metastatic tumors). The relative signal intensity of lesions on SPIO-enhanced heavily T1- and T2-weighted gradient-echo images was classified into one of the following three categories: high intensity, isointensity, or low intensity relative to the surrounding liver parenchyma. The diagnostic accuracy for differentiating solid metastatic tumors from nonsolid benign lesions (cysts or hemangiomas) was determined. RESULTS A combination of the relative signal intensity of the lesion on T2- and heavily T1-weighted gradient-echo images could be classified into the following five categories: high intensity and high intensity (category 1), high intensity and isointensity (category 2), high intensity and low intensity (category 3), isointensity and isointensity (category 4), and isointensity and low intensity (category 5). According to these categories, category 1 contained two hemangiomas, category 2 had 11 hemangiomas, category 3 had 25 metastatic tumors and two cysts, category 4 had three cysts, and category 5 had 37 cysts and one metastatic tumor. When a tumor with a relative signal intensity of categories 1 or 2 was considered to be a hemangioma (category 3 metastatic tumors and categories 4 and 5 cysts), diagnostic accuracy for characterizing such hepatic lesions was 96% (78/81). CONCLUSION When evaluating metastatic liver tumors on SPIO-enhanced MRI, we recommend that heavily T1- and T2-weighted gradient-echo images be obtained with our parameters to exclude hemangiomas or cysts.
A Threshold Inventory Rationing Policy for Service - Differentiated Demand Classes

Motivated by a study of the logistics systems used to manage consumable service parts for the U.S. military, we consider a static threshold-based rationing policy that is useful when pooling inventory across two demand classes characterized by different arrival rates and shortage (stockout and delay) costs. The scheme operates as a ( Q, r) policy with the following feature. Demands from both classes are filled on a first-come-first-serve basis as long as on-hand inventory lies above a threshold levelK. Once on-hand inventory falls below this level, low-priority (i.e., low shortage cost) demand is backordered while high-priority demand continues to be filled. We analyze this static policy first under the assumption that backorders are filled according to a special threshold clearing mechanism. Structural results for the key performance measures are established to enable an efficient solution algorithm for computing stock control and rationing parameters (i.e.,Q, r, andK). Numerical results confirm that the solution under this special threshold clearing mechanism closely approximates that of the priority clearing policy. We next highlight conditions where our policy offers significant savings over traditional "round-up" and "separate stock" policies encountered in the military and elsewhere. Finally, we develop a lower bound on the cost of the optimal rationing policy. Numerical results show that the performance gap between our static threshold policy and the optimal policy is small in environments typical of the military and high-technology industries.
Extracting and tracking Colon&#146;s "Pattern" from Colonoscopic Images

In this paper, we propose a new method for "pattern" extraction and tracking from endoscopic images. During colonoscopic intervention, the endoscope advance slowly. Therefore the displacement of the endoscope tool between two successive images is small. In this condition, it is possible to predict the set of possible positions of the target. We use this idea to develop two methods. The first method presented is based on the region growth. The information of continuity was used to extract and track colon "pattern" with resolving the traditional problem of this technique: the identification of the seed point. In the second method, we introduce a notion of distance between two successive images that the "pattern" cannot exceed. We also propose criteria of shape to identify diverticula. A set of endoscopic images is tested to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches. An interpretation of the results and the possible amelioration is presented.
Web3D-based online military boxing learning system

In this paper, we introduce a military boxing learning system implemented by 3D motion capture, Web3D and 3D interactive technologies, which can support that users observe and learn the details of each action of the military boxing under different views and scales by translating, rotating and zooming the 3D human body models. Beside keyboards and mice, smartphones also can be used in the system, which can provide some natural interactive operations by voice and touch technologies. The system can be extended to tai chi boxing, radio gymnastic exercises and other routines actions.
E-government initiatives in Nepal: challenges and opportunities

Although Nepal stands at the lower rung in the global scenario of ICT, there have been discernible developments in the ICT sector in the recent past. The telecommunication facilities have improved remarkably. The academic institutions/universities producing ICT professionals/human resources have expanded. The communication technologies, both electronic and print media, have extended their access to general people. Uses of the Internet, emails and computers are gaining in popularity. Telecenters are widening their outreach. Several e-Government applications are being introduced. Noteworthy among the country's recent e-Government initiatives is Nepal's e-Government Master Plan, completed in November 2006. Another milestone is the preparation of an ICT Development Project which has worked out detailed investment proposals for prioritized projects. Negotiations are underway between the Government of Nepal and the Asian Development Bank for its financing and implementation arrangements. The Government of Nepal is, thus, keen and committed to promote e-Government for implementation of various G2G, G2C and G2B projects defined under respective priority areas. But the road to e-Government is not easy and straight. There are no doubt ample opportunities for national development through e-Government promotion. There are also several hurdles, problems and challenges which must be overcome for successful accomplishments of Nepal's e-Government vision. This paper endeavors to present a holistic vision on e-Government development of Nepal.
Perspectives on activity theory: The content and unsolved problems of activity theory

Introduction All the humanities have for their subjects different aspects of human activity. At present they have to face a great number of acute unsolved problems. But before stating those problems and looking for ways to solve them, it is important to explain the basic concept of activity as formulated by the followers of activity theory. Activity is a specific form of the societal existence of humans consisting of purposeful changing of natural and social reality. In contrast to the laws of nature, societal laws manifest themselves only through human activity that constructs new forms and features of reality, thus turning the initial material into products. Any activity carried out by a subject includes goals, means, the process of molding the object, and the results. In fulfilling the activity, the subjects also change and develop themselves. The goals of activity manifest themselves as images of the foreseen result of the creative effort. The transforming and purposeful character of activity allows the subject to step beyond the frames of a given situation and to see it in a wider historical and societal context. It makes it possible for the subject to find means that go beyond the given possibilities. Activity permanently and limitlessly overcomes all the “programs” on which it is based. That is why it cannot be limited to changing reality according to the stable cultural norms. Activity is, in principle, open and universal; it should be taken as the form of historical and cultural creativity.
Phosphorus recovery potential from a waste stream with high organic and nutrient contents via struvite precipitation

Recovery of and via struvite precipitation (SP) was evaluated from liquor of thermally pretreated waste activated sludge, containing high levels of nutrients (1500 mg and 650 mg ), organics (45.5 g COD/L) and suspended solids (3.5 g TSS/L), with reference to anaerobically digested sludge centrate. In a series of jar tests, the order of pH adjustment and chemical addition were first tested for the digested sludge centrate. The effects of MgCl2 and MgO, as Mg2+ sources, on SP were evaluated in both waste streams. Up to 80% of the dissolved was recovered using MgO (pH=9.2) from the pretreated sludge liquor and more than 86% of from the digested sludge centrate (pH=8.0–8.5) regardless of the Mg2+ source used. recovery from digested sludge centrate required the addition of alkali, Mg2+ source and , making the process less viable. The precipitates contained mostly struvite and some levels of Ca2+, Fe2+ and other Mg2+ phosphates. The levels of solids, inorganics and organics in the waste streams influenced SP, specifically struvite crystal formation and settleability in the pretreated sludge liquor, which suggests that the applicability of SP for nutrient recovery from complex waste streams requires case-by-case testing, and process optimization.