Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-melanoma Skin Cancer

Epidemiology About three quarters of non-melanoma skin cancers are basal cell carcinomas (basaliomas). These metastasise only in exceptional cases, especially when the immune system is weakened, and are therefore rarely life-threatening. However, they can grow into the surrounding tissue, e.g. into the bones, and thus lead to considerable restrictions in the quality of life. Almost a quarter of malignant, non-melanoma tumours of the skin are squamous cell carcinomas. About two thirds of these tumours occur on the head or neck. Among the rare forms is Merkel cell carcinoma, which belongs to the neuroendocrine tumours. In 2018, it is estimated that almost 200,000 people in Germany developed non-melanoma skin cancer for the first time, compared to around 1,000 deaths per year. After the introduction of skin cancer screening, the incidence increased significantly; the recent noticeable decline might also be explained by a declining registration rate. Even though internationally, the data availability is less good compared to malignant melanoma, it can be assumed that the incidence of the disease has increased significantly in the western industrial nations during the last decades. Risk factors Non-melanoma skin cancer occurs more often in people with light skin types than in people with darker skin types. The most important risk factor for non-melanoma skin cancer is a strong exposure of the skin to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, no matter if the source is natural (the sun) or artificial (a solarium). The risk of squamous cell carcinoma increases with the cumulative (lifetime) UV dose. In the case of basal cell carcinoma, the risk is probably also increased by intermittent (recurrent intensive) UV exposure. Those who have already developed non-melanoma skin cancer have an increased risk of developing it again. Actinic keratoses in particular increase the risk of squamous cell carcinoma. Non-melanoma skin cancer can also develop after many years of arsenic exposure, on radiation-damaged skin (for example after radiotherapy) or under immunosuppressive therapy, for example after an organ transplant. The statutory cancer screening programme provides for a skin examination every two years by a doctor with appropriate training (dermatologist, general practitioner) for men and women from the age of 35. Table 3.14. 1 Overview of key epidemiological parameters for Germany, ICD-10 C44
Closed-Form Analysis of Relay-Based Cognitive Radio Networks Over Nakagami- $m$ Fading Channels

We propose a general framework for a comprehensive performance analysis of cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) in cognitive radio (CR) networks. Specifically, we investigate the detection accuracy of a relay-based CR network over independent nonidentical Nakagami- m fading channels. Based on the probability density function (pdf) approach, we derive new exact and approximated closed-form expressions for the average detection probability and the average false alarm probability employing two diversity combining techniques, namely, the maximal ratio combining (MRC) scheme and the selection combining (SC) scheme. We also investigate the convergence rate of infinite series that appears in the derived exact closed-form expressions and propose to use a powerful acceleration algorithm that allows for the series termination with a finite number of terms. The results obtained reveal the importance of including the relaying link statistics and the combination techniques in the performance analysis of CR networks. The derived closed-form expression can be used to determine the energy threshold and the relaying power constraint that meet a given detection accuracy value over nonidentically distributed Nakagami- m fading.
Improving the Gastrointestinal Tolerability of Aspirin in Older People

Interventions to reduce mortality and disability in older people are vital. Aspirin is cheap and effective and known to prevent cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, many cancers, and Alzheimer dementia. The widespread use of aspirin in older people is limited by its gastrointestinal side effects. Understanding age-related changes in gastrointestinal physiology that could put older people at risk of the side effects of aspirin may direct strategies to improve tolerance and hence lead to greater numbers of older people being able to take this effective intervention.
A Practical Update of Surgical Management of Merkel Cell Carcinoma of the Skin

The role of surgeons in the treatment of Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) of the skin is reviewed, with respect to diagnosis and treatment. Most of the data in the literature are case reports. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment. A wide local excision, with sentinel node (SLN) biopsy, is the recommended treatment of choice. If SLN is involved, nodal dissection should be performed; unless patient is unfit, then regional radiotherapy can be given. Surgeons should always refer patients for assessment of the need for adjuvant treatments. Adjuvant radiotherapy is well tolerated and effective to minimize recurrence. Adjuvant chemotherapy may be considered for selected node-positive patients, as per National Comprehensive Cancer Network guideline. Data are insufficient to assess whether adjuvant chemotherapy improves survival. Recurrent disease should be treated by complete surgical resection if possible, followed by radiotherapy and possibly chemotherapy. Generally results of multimodality treatment for recurrent disease are better than lesser treatments. Future research should focus on newer chemotherapy and molecular targeted agents in the adjuvant setting and for gross disease.
Comparing Two Measures for Formality

Formality is an important dimension of language style. Texts of different genres tend to have different degrees of formality. F-score (formality-score) is a most popular measure for formality to differ genres. It uses a method of combining proportions of words of different types, with nouns, adjectives, articles and prepositions as positive elements, and adverbs, verbs and interjections as negative elements. This measure is limited to the word level; however, indicators of genre are not restricted to the word level. This paper proposes a new composite component score of formality, “CF-score”, which consists of a combination of five Coh-Metrix component scores: narrativity, referential cohesion and deep cohesion, syntactic simplicity, word concreteness. F-score and CF-score are compared with TASA corpus in diverse text genres. Results of General Linear Model showed CF-score formality measure was more powerful and more rational with text genres than F-score.
Speechperception and psychophysics : Theoryandexperiment

Macmillan's comments are welcome and give us the opportunity to elaborate on some important points concerning the issue of categorical perception. In this reply, we argue that our interpretation of the Hary and Massaro (1982) results is not paradoxical if the important differences between a theory of perception and the results used to support the theory are respected. Next, we clarify the goals of the Hary and Massaro study and contrast the traditional categorical account against Macmillan's psychophysical account. Athough we conclude, as did Hary and Massaro (1982) and Macmillan (1983), that perception of the pluck/bow continuum is probably continuous and not categorical, our main point is that this hypothesis cannot be adequately tested using the identificationdiscrimination task.
Cryptococcus gattii Virulence Composite: Candidate Genes Revealed by Microarray Analysis of High and Less Virulent Vancouver Island Outbreak Strains

Human and animal cryptococcosis due to an unusual molecular type of Cryptococcus gattii (VGII) emerged recently on Vancouver Island, Canada. Unlike C. neoformans, C. gattii causes disease mainly in immunocompetent hosts, despite producing a similar suite of virulence determinants. To investigate a potential relationship between the regulation of expression of a virulence gene composite and virulence, we took advantage of two subtypes of VGII (a and b), one highly virulent (R265) and one less virulent (R272), that were identified from the Vancouver outbreak. By expression microarray analysis, 202 genes showed at least a 2-fold difference in expression with 108 being up- and 94 being down-regulated in strain R265 compared with strain R272. Specifically, expression levels of genes encoding putative virulence factors (e.g. LAC1, LAC2, CAS3 and MPK1) and genes encoding proteins involved in cell wall assembly, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism were increased in strain R265, whereas genes involved in the regulation of mitosis and ergosterol biosynthesis were suppressed. In vitro phenotypic studies and transcription analysis confirmed the microarray results. Gene disruption of LAC1 and MPK1 revealed defects in melanin synthesis and cell wall integrity, respectively, where CAS3 was not essential for capsule production. Moreover, MPK1 also controls melanin and capsule production and causes a severe attenuation of the virulence in a murine inhalational model. Overall, this study provides the basis for further genetic studies to characterize the differences in the virulence composite of strains with minor evolutionary divergences in gene expression in the primary pathogen C. gattii, that have led to a major invasive fungal infection outbreak.
Choptuik's scaling in higher dimensions

We extend Choptuik's scaling phenomenon found in general relativistic critical gravitational collapse of a massless scalar field to higher dimensions. We find that in the range 4{<=}D{<=}11 the behavior is qualitatively similar to that discovered by Choptuik. In each dimension we obtain numerically the universal numbers associated with the critical collapse: the scaling exponent {gamma} and the echoing period {delta}. The behavior of these numbers with increasing dimension seems to indicate that {gamma} reaches a maximum and {delta} a minimum value around 11{<=}D{<=}13. These results and their relation to the black hole-black string system are discussed.
Novel Multilevel Inverter with Minimum Number of Switches

Electric drives of high power applications require power electronic converters of high power rating. To meet this requirement, the multilevel inverter concept has been introduced for medium voltage and high power applications. The multilevel inverter became popular because of its advantages like low harmonic distortion, less rate of change of voltage (dv/dt) and it reduces the bearings stress of a motor. There are different types of multilevel inverters have been introduced in to the market such as diode clamped, flying capacitor and cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) inverter. Out of these, CHB inverter is extensively used with symmetrical and asymmetrical configuration. The major drawback of CHB inverter is, it requires more number of HBridges as the number of levels is increased. Therefore, switches requirement increases which lead to increase the size, cost and complexity. In this paper, a new topology for multilevel inverter is proposed with minimum number of switches in both symmetrical and asymmetrical configuration. The inverter is modeled using Matlab/Simulink software and the results are compared with cascaded H-Bridge inverter. The output of this inverter is fed to the 3 phase induction motor drive and the performance characteristics are also analyzed.
Cortical inhibition of laser pain and laser‐evoked potentials by non‐nociceptive somatosensory input

Although the inhibitory action that tactile stimuli can have on pain is well documented, the precise timing of the interaction between the painful and non‐painful stimuli in the central nervous system is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate this issue by measuring the timing of the amplitude modulation of laser evoked potentials (LEPs) due to conditioning non‐painful stimuli. LEPs were recorded from 31 scalp electrodes in 10 healthy subjects after painful stimulation of the right arm (C6–C7 dermatomes). Non‐painful electrical stimuli were applied by ring electrodes on the second and third finger of the right hand. Electrical stimuli were delivered at +50, +150, +200 and +250 ms interstimulus intervals (ISIs) after the laser pulses. LEPs obtained without any conditioning stimulation were used as a baseline. As compared to the baseline, non‐painful electrical stimulation reduced the amplitude of the vertex N2/P2 LEP component and the laser pain rating when electrical stimuli followed the laser pulses only at +150 and +200 ms ISIs. As at these ISIs the collision between the non‐painful and painful input is likely to take place at the cortical level, we can conclude that the late processing of painful (thermal) stimuli is partially inhibited by the processing of non‐painful (cutaneous) stimuli within the cerebral cortex. Moreover, our results do not provide evidence that non‐painful inputs can inhibit pain at a lower level, including the spinal cord.
Fundamental questions before recording or measuring functioning and disability

Purpose: This paper seeks to contribute to thoughtful description, recording and measurement of functioning, by discussing some fundamental questions to consider before starting, framed as: why, what, how and who. Method: Generic literature on measurement methods and the more specialised literature on application of the ICF over the last decade inform the consideration of these questions. The context of recording or measurement is examined, including the moral and legal framework of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the technical framework of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Results: Whatever the setting in which describing, recording or measuring is being undertaken – in policy development, service planning and management, clinical management or population health monitoring – determining the purpose is the key starting point. Purpose (why) frames the consideration of content (what), method (how) and source (who). Many generic measurement methods can be applied in the disability field, but there are challenges particular to the field. The perspectives of people with disabilities and “patients” require consideration, especially with the trend to person-centred care and the social justice principles emanating from the UNCRPD. Conclusions: Considering these basic questions is a pre-requisite to meaningful recording and measurement of functioning and disability. Future challenges include: incorporating environmental factors into measurement; setting thresholds on the disability spectrum; and combining the views of the person concerned with those of various professionals. Implications for Rehabilitation Partnership with people with disabilities in their rehabilitation is based on their co-ownership with service providers of the questions that drive the assessment process. Asking basic questions of the assessment process – such as why, what, how and who – demystifies its intent and outcomes for people receiving rehabilitation services and contributes to genuine partnership in the provision of rehabilitation services. Validity of measurement depends on both the evidence for and the consequences of score interpretation. The consideration of these basic questions will contribute to the validity of rehabilitation assessment.
Radial Growth and Physiological Response of Coniferous Trees to Arctic Amplification

We describe the physiological responses of boreal conifers to climate change for the past 112 years using ring‐width and carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) chronologies at six forest sites in northern Eurasia and Canada. Responses differed among regions, depending on their climatic and/or geographic characteristics. Tree radial growth decreased over the past 52 years in central eastern Siberia with the higher rate of summer temperature increase than other regions, as indicated by the negative correlation between radial growth and summer temperature, but increased in northern Europe and Canada. Changes in tree‐ring δ13C indicated that recent climatic conditions have induced stronger drought stress for trees from central eastern Siberia than for those from other regions. The observed tree growth trends were compared to those simulated using a dynamic global vegetation model. Although the modeled annual net primary production (NPP) for trees generally exhibited similar decadal variation to radial growth, simulations did not show a recent decrease in tree growth, even in central eastern Siberia. This was probably due to an overestimation of the sensitivity of modeled tree NPP to precipitation. Our results suggest that the tree NPP forecasted under the expected future increases in temperature and average precipitation might be overestimated, especially in severely dry regions such as central eastern Siberia.
Operational use of spaceborne lidar datasets

The Met Office plans to use space lidar datasets from CALIPSO, CATS, Aeolus and EarthCARE operationally in near real time (NRT), for the detection of aerosols. The first step is the development of NRT imagery for nowcasting of volcanic events, air quality, and mineral dust episodes. Model verification and possibly assimilation will be explored. Assimilation trials of Aeolus winds are also planned. Here we will present our first in-house imagery and our operational requirements.
Performance improvement of mobile P2P VoD by opportunity extension

This demonstration introduces our on-going work called MOVi+ that attempts to improve the video delivery performance of MOVi (Mobile Opportunistic Video-on-demand) by scheduling segments from the whole node perspective. By deploying segment based caching-enabled switch, MOVi+ increases the opportunity which reflects the pairing chances among nodes. MOVi+ also evaluates the merit of pre-diffusion-aware scheduling to utilize the time varying opportunity as much as possible. We shows that MOVi+ can eventually service more number of mobile nodes than MOVi with lower segment missing ratio, better opportunity usage, and playout continuity.
Functional Cell‐Surface Display of a Lipase‐Specific Chaperone

Lipases are important enzymes in biotechnology. Extracellular bacterial lipases from Pseudomonads and related species require the assistance of specific chaperones, designated “Lif” proteins (lipase specific foldases). Lifs, a unique family of steric chaperones, are anchored to the periplasmic side of the inner membrane where they convert lipases into their active conformation. We have previously shown that the autotransporter protein EstA from P. aeruginosa can be used to direct a variety of proteins to the cell surface of Escherichia coli. Here we demonstrate for the first time the functional cell‐surface display of the Lif chaperone and FACS (fluorescence‐activated cell sorting)‐based analysis of bacterial cells that carried foldase–lipase complexes. The model Lif protein, LipH from P. aeruginosa, was displayed at the surface of E. coli cells. Surface exposed LipH was functional and efficiently refolded chemically denatured lipase. The foldase autodisplay system reported here can be used for a variety of applications including the ultrahigh‐throughput screening of large libraries of foldase variants generated by directed evolution.
Pedestrian recognition for intelligent transportation systems

This paper describes a binocular vision-based pedestrian recognition System. The basic components of pedestrians are first located in the image and then combined with a SVM-based classifier. This poses the problem of pedestrian detection and recognition in real, cluttered road images. Candidate pedestrians are located using a subtractive clustering attention mechanism. A distributed learning approach is proposed in order to better deal with pedestrians variability, illumination conditions, partial occlusions and rotations. The performance of the pedestrian recognition system is enhanced by a multiframe validation process. By doing so, the detection rate is largely increased. A database containing hundreds of pedestrian examples extracted from real traffic images has been created for learning purposes. We present and discuss the results achieved up to date.
Early Treatment of Stroke With Monosialoganglioside GM‐1: Efficacy and Safety Results of the Early Stroke Trial

Background and Purpose The Early Stroke Trial (EST) is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to assess the effect of monosialoganglioside GM-1 in improving recovery in patients who experienced an ischemic supratentorial stroke. Methods Sixteen clinical centers recruited 805 patients, of whom 792 were confirmed to be eligible. Treatment, consisting of a first dose of either 200 mg GM-1 or placebo, was initiated within 5 hours of the onset of stroke; a second dose of either 100 mg GM-1 or placebo was administered 12 hours later. Thereafter, patients received a daily injection of 100 mg GM-1 or placebo intravenously from day 2 through 10 and intramuscularly from day 11 through 21. Patients were followed up for a total of 4 months. Results Survival was similar in the two treatment groups. Improvement in neurological status, as measured by the change in Canadian Neurological Scale score between baseline and 4-month assessments, was greater in the group receiving GM-1; the observed difference between treatment groups was 0.22 (P=.06). A post hoc analysis in the subgroup of patients treated within 4 hours showed a statistically significant difference, with Canadian Neurological Scale mean improvement of 0.41 (P=.016). GM-1 use was not associated with differences in frequency, nature, or severity of adverse experiences. Conclusions These findings suggest that GM-1 is safe in the dose and treatment schedule used and that its efficacy in ischemic stroke is greater when given soon after onset of stroke.
Biologically Inspired Robot Design and Modeling

In this paper we present results from the DARPA sponsored robotic project Scorpion. The eight-legged walking robot was modeled, constructed, and programmed in a way that was in many kinds inspired by biological topics. This aspect in robot design is the main focus here, e.g. a physical model for 8-legged walking with continously changing speed is derived from biological observations. Compared to a classical model from a biological paper, our approach turns out to be more consistent and more practical for walking machines.
An improved quantum Fourier transform algorithm and applications

We give an algorithm for approximating the quantum Fourier transform over an arbitrary Z/sub p/ which requires only O(n log n) steps where n=log p to achieve an approximation to within an arbitrary inverse polynomial in n. This improves the method of A.Y. Kitaev (1995) which requires time quadratic in n. This algorithm also leads to a general and efficient Fourier sampling technique which improves upon the quantum Fourier sampling lemma of L. Hales and S. Hallgren (1997). As an application of this technique, we give a quantum algorithm which finds the period of an arbitrary periodic function, i.e. a function which may be many-to-one within each period. We show that this algorithm is efficient (polylogarithmic in the period of the function) for a large class of periodic functions. Moreover, using standard quantum lower-bound techniques, we show that this characterization is right. That is, this is the maximal class of periodic functions with an efficient quantum period-finding algorithm.