Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[Prevalence of hepatitis C virus genotypes in the area of El Ferrol (La Coruña, Spain)].

BACKGROUND To determine the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes in the area of El Ferrol, as well as their distribution according to risk factors. METHODS A total of 479 patients with hepatitis C were studied, including 254 with no known risk factors, 161 intravenous drug abusers (IVDA) and 64 with a history of blood transfusions. The presence of HCV RNA was studied by RT-PCR, and a reverse hybridization method (INNO-LiPA) was used for genotyping. RESULTS Genotype distribution was as follows: 1b, 269 (56.2%); 1a, 79 (16.5%); 3a, 59 (12.3%); 4c/4d, 35 (7.3%); 1, 19 (4.0%); 2a/2c, 3 (0.6%); 4, 3 (0.6%); 2b, 2 (0.4%). In 10 patients (2.1%) genotype could not be determined. In patients with no known risk factor, the predominant genotype was 1b, detected in 191 of the 254 patients in this group (75.2%). Distribution of genotypes was more varied in the IVDA group, with the most frequent being 1a in 49 (30.4%) and 3a in 43 (26.7%). In the 64 patients who had received transfusions, 1b was predominant, detected in 54 of 64 patients (84.4%). CONCLUSIONS The predominant HCV genotype in our area is 1b. Differences in genotype distribution were observed in the population groups studied, according to their underlying risk factors.
Point-Counterpoints: Anxiety and Social Exclusion

This article elaborates a view of anxiety as deriving from a basic human need to belong to social groups. Anxiety is seen as a pervasive and possibly an innately prepared form of distress that arises in response to actual or threatened exclusion from important social groups. The reasons groups exclude individuals (incompetence, deviance or immorality, and unattractiveness) therefore should all be linked to anxiety, and events that implicate the self as incompetent, guilty, or unattractive should create anxiety. This “exclusion theory” of anxiety can be considered a broader revision of separation anxiety theory and is distinguished from theories that base anxiety on fear of death, fear of castration, and perception of uncertainty. Current evidence from multiple sources is reviewed to show the explanatory power and utility of exclusion theory, and implications of this theory are developed in relation to culturally changing standards of sexual behavior, the motivations underlying the Oedipus complex, and the.
Unstable coronary plaque and its relation to coronary calcium.

Coronary calcium is intimately associated with coronary atherosclerotic plaque development. The use of electron-beam computed tomography (EBCT) for accurate quantitative measurements has led to an increased interest in understanding the clinical importance of coronary calcium, particularly in terms of the ability to identify unstable coronary plaques that underlie the clinical acute coronary syndromes. Histopathologic studies have demonstrated that calcium is a frequent feature of ruptured plaques, but the presence or absence of calcium does not allow for reliable distinction between unstable versus stable plaques. This issue is complicated by the lack of a prospective definition for "unstable. " Plaque rupture is sometimes found in apparently healthy subjects and in patients with clinically stable disease. Coronary atherosclerosis is a coronary systemic disease process. Imaging of coronary calcium, although unable to identify a localized unstable plaque, potentially can identify the more clinically pertinent "unstable patient. " Almost all patients with a recent acute coronary syndrome have measurable coronary calcium because moderate-to-advanced coronary plaque disease is already present, although obstructive disease frequently is not. Prospective studies have demonstrated that extensive coronary calcium detected by EBCT is associated with a significantly increased incidence of subsequent myocardial infarction, need for revascularization, and coronary death. The incremental prognostic value of coronary calcium compared with that of risk factor assessment remains to be fully defined. The occurrence of an acute coronary syndrome is determined by many factors apart from the extent of atherosclerotic plaque disease. Large prospective trials in the general population are needed to define the subgroups that will benefit most from quantitative assessment of coronary calcium.
Breast disease: clinical application of US elastography for diagnosis.

PURPOSE To evaluate the diagnostic performance of real-time freehand elastography by using the extended combined autocorrelation method (CAM) to differentiate benign from malignant breast lesions, with pathologic diagnosis as the reference standard. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study was approved by the University of Tsukuba Human Subjects Institutional Review Board; all patients gave informed consent. Conventional ultrasonography (US) and real-time US elastography with CAM were performed in 111 women (mean age, 49.4 years; age range, 27-91 years) who had breast lesions (59 benign, 52 malignant). Elasticity images were assigned an elasticity score according to the degree and distribution of strain induced by light compression. The area under the curve and cutoff point, both of which were obtained by using a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, were used to assess diagnostic performance. Mean scores were examined by using a Student t test. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were compared by using the standard proportion difference test or the Delta-equivalent test. RESULTS For elasticity score, the mean +/- standard deviation was 4.2 +/- 0.9 for malignant lesions and 2.1 +/- 1.0 for benign lesions (P < .001). When a cutoff point of between 3 and 4 was used, elastography had 86.5% sensitivity, 89.8% specificity, and 88.3% accuracy. When a best cutoff point of between 4 and 5 was used, conventional US had 71.2% sensitivity, 96.6% specificity, and 84.7% accuracy. Elastography had higher sensitivity than conventional US (P < .05). By using equivalence bands for noninferiority or equivalence, it was shown that the specificity of elastography was not inferior to that of conventional US and that the accuracy of elastography was equivalent to that of conventional US. CONCLUSION For assessing breast lesions, US elastography with the proposed imaging classification, which was simple compared with that of the Breast Imaging Recording and Data System classification, had almost the same diagnostic performance as conventional US.
Colorectal Carcinoma: Diagnostic, Prognostic, and Molecular Features

Surgical resection is the primary treatment modality for colorectal cancer, and the pathologic assessment of the resection specimen provides data that is essential for patient management, including the estimation of postoperative outcome and the rationale for adjuvant therapy. The essential elements of the pathological assessment of colorectal cancer resection specimens include the pathologic determination of TNM stage, tumor type, histologic grade, status of resection margins, and vascular invasion. The prognostic and/or predictive value of these elements, as well as guidelines for their derivation and interpretation, are reviewed in detail. Other tissue-based prognostic factors that are strongly suggested by existing data to have stage-independent prognostic value or to predict response to adjuvant therapy but that have not yet been validated for routine patient care are also reviewed. These include perineural invasion, tumor border configuration, host immune response to tumor, and molecular features such as microsatellite instability or loss of heterozygosity of chromosome 18. The need for high-quality, reproducible pathologic data in the care of the colorectal cancer patient, and the dependence of that data on standardization of all aspects of pathological assessment, is emphasized.
Sınıf Öğretmeni Adaylarının Beden Eğitimi Dersine Yönelik Tutum ve Öz-Yeterlikleri

Bu arastirmanin amaci; sinif ogretmeni adaylarinin beden egitimi dersine yonelik tutum ve ozyeterlik algilarini bazi degiskenlere gore incelemek ve aralarindaki iliskiyi belirlemektir. Arastirmanin calisma grubu, 354’u kadin ve 174’u erkek 528 sinif ogretmeni adayindan olusmaktadir. Arastirmada veri toplama araci olarak ‘Beden Egitimi Dersi Tutum Olcegi’ (Oncu, 2013) ve ‘Beden Egitimi Dersi Oz-Yeterlik Olcegi’ (Ipek ve Bayraktar, 2009) kullanilmistir. Veriler; betimsel istatistik yontemler, t-testi, tek yonlu varyans analizi (ANOVA), Pearson Correlation testi ve regresyon analizi kullanilarak analiz edilmistir. Arastirmadan elde edilen bulgular dogrultusunda, calisma grubunda yer alan sinif ogretmeni adaylarinin beden egitimi dersine yonelik tutum ve oz-yeterlik algilarinin orta seviyenin uzerinde oldugu gorulmustur. Arastirma sonucunda, beden egitimi dersine yonelik tutumlarin cinsiyet, sinif ve duzenli olarak spor yapma durumu degiskenlerine gore anlamli bir sekilde farklilastigi gorulurken oz-yeterlik algilarinin ise duzenli olarak spor yapma durumu degiskenine gore farklilastigi gozlenmistir. Diger taraftan arastirma sonuclari, sinif ogretmeni adaylarinin beden egitimi dersine yonelik tutumlarinin, beden egitimi dersi oz-yeterlik algilarinin anlamli bir yordayicisi oldugunu gostermektedir
Institutional Theory in the Study of Multinational Corporations: A Critique and New Directions

This paper was motivated by the growing interest of scholars of multinational corporations (MNCs) in the institutional perspective. Our review of the literature suggests that international management applications of this perspective have been dominated by a narrow set of neoinstitutional ideas. We develop a set of provocations that challenge the validity of traditional neoinstitutionalism in the context of MNCs. We then offer ideas for more novel theory building in the study of MNCs, based on integrating “old” and “new” institutionalism.
A Novel Protocol for Accuracy Assessment in Classification of Very High Resolution Images

This paper presents a novel protocol for the accuracy assessment of the thematic maps obtained by the classification of very high resolution images. As the thematic accuracy alone is not sufficient to adequately characterize the geometrical properties of high-resolution classification maps, we propose a protocol that is based on the analysis of two families of indices: 1) the traditional thematic accuracy indices and 2) a set of novel geometric indices that model different geometric properties of the objects recognized in the map. In this context, we present a set of indices that characterize five different types of geometric errors in the classification map: 1) oversegmentation; 2) undersegmentation; 3) edge location; 4) shape distortion; and 5) fragmentation. Moreover, we propose a new approach for tuning the free parameters of supervised classifiers on the basis of a multiobjective criterion function that aims at selecting the parameter values that result in the classification map that jointly optimize thematic and geometric error indices. Experimental results obtained on QuickBird images show the effectiveness of the proposed protocol in selecting classification maps characterized by a better tradeoff between thematic and geometric accuracies than standard procedures based only on thematic accuracy measures. In addition, results obtained with support vector machine classifiers confirm the effectiveness of the proposed multiobjective technique for the selection of free-parameter values for the classification algorithm.
Edge Detection: Local and Global Operators

The paper describes a technique called ISE for image segmentation using entropy. The relation between the entropy of an image domain and the entropy of its subdomains is explored as a uniformity predicate. Such entropy is obtained from the analysis of the image histogram associating a Gaussian distribution to the maximum frequency of gray levels. In order to implement the model, we have introduced a well-known technique of Problem Solving. In our model, the most important roles are played by the Evaluation Function (EF) and the Control Strategy. The EF is related to the ratio between the entropy of one region or zone of the picture and the entropy of the entire picture, while the Control Strategy determines the optimal path in the search tree (quadtree) so that the nodes in the optimal path have minimal entropy. The paper shows some comparisons between ISE and classical edge detection techniques.
Macdonald Polynomials and Geometry

This article is an explication of some remarkable connections between the two-parameter symmetric polynomials discovered in 1988 by Macdonald [26], and the geometry of certain algebraic varieties, notably the Hilbert scheme Hilb(C2) of points in the plane, and the variety Cn of pairs of commuting n × n matrices (“commuting variety,” for short). The conjectures on diagonal harmonics introduced in [19] and [12] also relate to this geometric setting. I have sought to give a reasonably self-contained treatment of these topics, by providing an introduction to the theory of Macdonald polynomials, to the “plethystic substitution” notation for symmetric functions which is invaluable in dealing with them, and to the conjectures and other phenomena relating to them that we aim to explain geometrically. The geometric discussion is less self-contained, as it is unavoidable to use scheme-theoretic language, constructions such as blowups, and some sheaf cohomological arguments. I do however give geometric descriptions in elementary terms of the various algebraic varieties encountered, and review whatever of their special features we might use, so as to orient the reader not previously familiar with them.
Cross‐cultural music phrase processing: An fMRI study

The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural basis of musical phrase boundary processing during the perception of music from native and non‐native cultures. German musicians performed a cultural categorization task while listening to phrased Western (native) and Chinese (non‐native) musical excerpts as well as modified versions of these, where the impression of phrasing has been reduced by removing the phrase boundary marking pause (henceforth called “unphrased”). Bilateral planum temporale was found to be associated with an increased difficulty of identifying phrase boundaries in unphrased Western melodies. A network involving frontal and parietal regions showed increased activation for the phrased condition with the orbital part of left inferior frontal gyrus presumably reflecting working memory aspects of the temporal integration between phrases, and the middle frontal gyrus and intraparietal sulcus probably reflecting attention processes. Areas more active in the culturally familiar, native (Western) condition included, in addition to the left planum temporale and right ventro‐medial prefrontal cortex, mainly the bilateral motor regions. These latter results are interpreted in light of sensorimotor integration. Regions with increased signal for the unfamiliar, non‐native music style (Chinese) included a right lateralized network of angular gyrus and the middle frontal gyrus, possibly reflecting higher demands on attention systems, and the right posterior insula suggesting higher loads on basic auditory processing. Hum Brain Mapp, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Behavioural investigation of polarisation sensitivity in the Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) and the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

SUMMARY Many animals have sensitivity to the e-vector of linearly polarised light, which may assist in visually mediated behaviours such as navigation, signalling and foraging. However, it is still controversial as to whether birds possess polarisation sensitivity. Several studies have found that altering the polarisation patterns of the broad visual field surrounding birds alters their intended migratory orientation. However, electrophysiological tests have failed to elicit evidence for polarisation sensitivity in birds, and the mechanism by which birds might perceive polarised light is unknown. In this experiment, we trained Japanese quail and European starlings to discriminate stimuli differing in their polarisation pattern. Although both quail and starlings were able to discriminate stimuli in which the stimulus sub-components either differed or had the same radiant intensity (the control task), they were unable to discriminate stimuli in which the e-vector orientations of the stimulus sub-components either differed by 90° or had the same angle of polarisation. The birds' successful performance on the control task, but failure to complete the polarisation task, demonstrated that they had all the necessary cognitive abilities to make the discrimination except sensitivity to angle of polarisation. We conclude that quail and starlings are unable to use polarisation cues in this foraging task.
A Model-Driven Approach to Cloud SaaS Interoperability

computing is a promising computing paradigm wherein the resources are made available to the clients as services, over high bandwidth networks. Cloud SaaS refers to a cloud computing service model in which the software applications are offered as services. These cloud software applications may require interacting with each other in order to accomplish a task. Thus, interoperability among services is an important issue for consideration in cloud computing. With the hardware and software technologies constantly evolving at a tremendous pace, the IT industry is persistently faced with the challenges of technology obsolescence. These changing technologies have more serious consequences in B2B context. Therefore, it becomes essential to promote a technology-agnostic software development approach that could alleviate the undesirable effects of technology change. In this perspective, Model-driven Architecture (MDA) becomes a preferred methodology for developing cloud software services. This paper presents an MDA-based model-driven approach to develop cloud software services and exhibit interoperability between them.
Stable Internally Positive Representations of Continuous Time Systems

An Internally Positive Representation (IPR) of a non-positive system is a positive system that, under suitable input, state and output transformations, exactly replicates the behavior of the original system. Any construction method of an IPR necessarily introduces additional natural modes, which in some cases are unstable. In a previous paper the authors have presented a method that provides a stable IPR if and only if the eigenvalues of the original system lie in a specific sector of the open left-half complex plane. In this technical note a new technique is proposed that overcomes such a limitation, and provides a stable IPR for any stable system, although in some cases the dimension of the IPR must be large in order to guarantee its stability. Although, for simplicity, the method is only illustrated for single-input single-output systems with distinct eigenvalues, it also applies to multi-input multi-output systems with multiple eigenvalues.
Effects of Esomeprazole on Acid Output in Patients With Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome or Idiopathic Gastric Acid Hypersecretion

OBJECTIVES:To evaluate the efficacy and safety of oral esomeprazole in the control of gastric acid hypersecretion in patients with hypersecretory states.METHODS:In this 12-month, open-label, multicenter study, acid output (AO) was evaluated at baseline, day 10, and months 3, 6, and 12. The starting dose of esomeprazole was 40 mg or 80 mg twice daily. On day 10, patients with controlled AO were maintained on the same dose, while those with uncontrolled AO had their doses increased (maximum dose 240 mg/day) until control was attained. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) was performed at baseline and at 6 and 12 months. Safety and tolerability were assessed throughout the study by EGD, gastric analysis, and adverse events.RESULTS:Twenty-one patients (19 with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome [ZES], 2 with idiopathic gastric acid hypersecretion [IGH]) completed the study. Of the 20 patients with controlled AO at day 10, 18 (90%) had sustained AO control for the rest of the study. At 12 months, AO was controlled in 14 of 16 patients receiving esomeprazole 40 mg twice daily, in all 4 patients receiving esomeprazole 80 mg twice daily, and in the 1 patient receiving esomeprazole 80 mg 3 times daily. At 6 and 12 months, no patient had endoscopic evidence of mucosal disease. Esomeprazole was well tolerated; 1 patient had a serious adverse event (hypomagnesemia) attributed to treatment that resolved with magnesium supplementation during continued treatment.CONCLUSION:Esomeprazole in appropriately titrated doses controls AO over 12 months in patients with hypersecretory states and is well tolerated.
SVM Strategies for Common-Mode Current Reduction in Transformerless Current-Source Drives at Low Modulation Index

In transformerless high-power pulse width modulation (PWM) current-source drives, common-mode inductor is implemented to attenuate the common-mode voltage (CMV). However, the common-mode inductor is bulky and costly, so that scaling down the size of the common-mode inductor can achieve the system size reduction and efficiency enhancement. The size of the common-mode inductor is mainly related to the maximum common-mode current, which occurs at the resonant frequency of the common-mode circuit when motor speed is low. Previous research demonstrates that 3-segment average-value-reduction (AVR) space vector modulation (SVM) has good common-mode resonance suppression performance by attenuating the third-order CMV from the inverter. However, as studied in this paper, when modulation index of the inverter is lower than 0.4, the performance of 3-segment AVR SVM is affected as the dwell time of zero vector becomes too long to effectively compensate the CMV introduced by the active vectors. To overcome this problem, three modified AVR SVM schemes are proposed in this paper, where the single long zero vector is separated into two segments in the PWM sequence. The working principles, CMV reduction performance, harmonic performance, and switching frequency analysis of the proposed SVM methods are presented in detailed. Experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
FPGA-based wideband force sensing with Kalman-filter-based disturbance observer

Haptic technology has been attracting widespread attention in the fields of robotics and medicine. The bandwidth of force sensing is vital to reproduce the vivid force sensation. This paper proposes a method to enlarge the bandwidth of force sensing. In this paper, the force sensing operation is constructed by a combination of a Kalman-filter and a disturbance observer for multi-sensor. In order to achieve the high sampling rate, the control algorithm together with the force estimation function is implemented in a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The wide bandwidth of force sensing is obtained owing to the shortened sampling period by FPGA and the noise suppression by Kalman-filter. The experimental results show the viability of the proposed method.