Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The immunopathology of tuberculosis, the mode of action of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, of the tuberculin and of the immunotherapy

The outer surface of the cell membrane of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is made of carbohydrates and lipids that do not readily induce the formation of antibodies by the invaded host. The absence of antibodies against the outer cell membrane of wild strains explains the long persistence of the pathogen in the invaded host. Its immunopathology sequence proceeds in four complex steps, some generating an immunodeficiency. TB presents a pronounced phenotypic variation, with the result that strains thriving in different parts of the world differ widely immunologically. The bacterium is ubiquitous, and the claim that the infection affects a quarter of the human population is an understatement. The Bacillus Calmette–Guerin (BCG) vaccination is a primo-infection that may generate an immunodepression and favor the infection of immunodepressed hosts. The BCG vaccine elicits a vigorous cellular immune response that prevents proliferation. This explains why BCG does not protect against infection but prevents dissemination from the primary foci to other parts of the body. The mycobacterium Mycobacterium vaccae fails to elicit a cellular immune response at a par with that generated by BCG. However, it is far superior to BCG at the humoral immunity level. The boosting of the synthesis of nitric oxide is possible by food supplements, as an adjuvant to immunotherapy.
Effect of Furcation Perforation Size on Fracture Resistance of Mandibular First Molar

Introduction: Which were weakening furcation area can reduce tooth strength against fracture. The present study assessed fracture resistance in the mandibular first molars perforated at furcation area and sealed with mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA). This study was aimed to investigate the effect of furcation perforation size on fracture resistance in first mandibular molar teeth. Material and Methods: The cervical region of 50 mandibular first molars were cut at cenentum enamel junction level. After root preparation and obturation, the samples were randomly classified into five groups: group 1:1 mm perforation, reconstructed with MTA; group 2:1 mm perforation, without repair, with wax filling; group 3:2 mm perforation, reconstructed with MTA; group 4:2 mm perforation, without repair, with wax filling; and group 5: without perforation. The compressive force breaking each sample was recorded. Data were subjected to SPSS-20 software to analyze by Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, two-way ANOVA, and independent samples t-test. Results: Furcation perforation and MTA had no significant effect on the force at the break point; no significant difference between 1 and 2 mm perforations either MTA restored or wax filled was registered. No significant difference in mean force at the break point between groups with or without perforation was observed. Conclusions: One and 2 mm furcation perforation does not reduce the fracture resistance. MTA in 1 or 2 mm perforations does not increase the fracture resistance.
Effect of conbercept or ranibizumab in the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of conbercept or ranibizumab in the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and to explore the influence on central retinal thickness (CRT), visual acuity, and choroidal neovascularization (CNV) permeation. Patients and Methods: A total of 85 patients (85 eyes) with wet AMD were enrolled in this study. All patients were treated by intravitreal injection of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor and were randomly divided into two groups. Patients in Group A were treated by intravitreal injection of conbercept, whereas those in Group B were treated by intravitreal injection of ranibizumab once a month for 3 consecutive months. The best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was measured. Subfoveal choroidal thickness (SFCT) and CRT of affected eyes and healthy eyes were examined with optical coherence tomography. Fundus fluorescein angiography was performed, and the area of CNV permeation was calculated. Results: BCVA (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution) of affected eyes in the two groups was significantly better at 1 month, 2 months, and 3 months after treatment as well as at the end of follow-up than that of before treatment. Meanwhile, CRT was obviously decreased. SFCT of affected eyes was significantly smaller than that of before treatment, which was also remarkably smaller when compared with that of healthy eyes. At 3 months after treatment and at the end of follow-up, the areas of CNV permeation in the two groups were significantly decreased. In addition, the average times of injection in Group A were significantly less than that of Group B. Conclusions: Intravitreal injection of conbercept and ranibizumab significantly decreased SFCT of affected eyes. However, the length of conbercept medication injection time was lower than that of ranibizumab.
Diagnostic Pitfalls in Fine-Needle Aspiration of Metastatic Carotid Body Paraganglioma: A Case Report

Abstract We report a case of a metastatic carotid body tumor. At the time of the biopsy and during initial review of the fine-needle aspiration sample, the remote history of carotid body tumor was unknown to the clinician and the cytopathologist. Fine-needle aspiration smears showed morphology suggestive of endocrine features such as lack of cohesion, manifesting as tumor cells seen mostly as single intact cells with “salt-and-pepper”–type chromatin, intranuclear inclusions, eccentrically placed nuclei lacking prominent nucleoli, and moderately abundant cytoplasm. Occasional significantly larger tumor cells were noted as well. Included in the differential diagnosis was well-differentiated adenocarcinoma, such as lung cancer, thyroid papillary carcinoma, thyroid medullary carcinoma, and various neuroendocrine tumors. Immunohistochemistry on cell block confirmed neuroendocrine differentiation. Knowledge of the patient’s history of carotid body tumor was crucial to the accurate diagnosis in this case, as morphologic features alone are typically not sufficient to distinguish benign from malignant carotid body tumors, or other neuroendocrine lesions. The tumor was determined to be malignant based on the history of the primary carotid body tumor, with the same morphologic features as seen in the previous specimen, combined with the location of the current tumor away from the primary tumor site. Our case demonstrates the importance of accurate and complete clinical history, consideration of pertinent morphologic findings, and collection of material for cell block allowing for appropriate immunohistochemical staining.
Study to determine the prevalance of substance use and factors associated with it, in first-episode of psychosis

Background: Psychoactive substance use occurs commonly in patients with psychotic disorders. Aim: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of substance use in first-episode psychotic patients and to evaluate the association between substance use and various sociodemographic variables. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study, and symptomatic first-episode, treatment-naive psychosis patients were included (n = 79). A semi-structured pro forma was used for the evaluation of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. The patients were then interviewed for use of any psychoactive substance in their lifetime. In each case, the history was corroborated by a family member or a caregiver. Wherever required, a second interview was conducted. Results: The mean age at the onset of psychotic disorder for substance users was 36.09 years and for nonusers was 35.50 years. Almost three-fourth of the patients reported the use of at least one substance in their lifetime. Alcohol use was reported by 40.50% of patients, tobacco by 55%, and cannabis by 8.86%. It was significant in patients who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, acute and transient psychotic disorder, persistent delusional disorder, and unspecified nonorganic psychotic disorder. Conclusion: The results show a high prevalence of psychoactive substance abuse compared to the prevalence in the general population. This has tremendous significance in the management of such illness, which is known to impact the prognosis adversely.
Face-to-face and video mediated communication: a comparison of dialogue structure and task performance

This article examined communication and task performance in face-to-face, copresent, and video-mediated communication (VMC). Study 1 showed that when participants in a collaborative problem-solving task could both see and hear each other, the structure of their dialogues differed compared with dialogues obtained when they only heard each other. The audio-only conversations had more words, and these extra utterances often provided and elicited verbal feedback functions, which visual signals can deliver when available. Study 2, however, showed that high-quality VMC did not appear to deliver the same benefits as face-to-face, copresent interaction. It appears that novelty, attenuation, and remoteness all may have contributed to the effects found factors that should be considered by designers of remote video-conferencing systems.
Design of PWM controller for sampled-data system using digitally redesigned PAM controller

In this paper, we address two issues: digital redesign of a continuous-time system with an input time delay, and to translate the pulse-amplitude modulated (PAM) controller obtained by the newly proposed digital redesign method into an equivalent pulse-width modulated (PWM) controller. A tuning parameter is introduced into the PAM controller so that the digitally controlled sampled-data states closely match with the original continuous-time input time-delay states. Also, the principle of equivalent areas is applied to convert the newly developed PAM controller to an equivalent PWM controller so that the PWM controlled states closely match with the PAM controlled states for a relatively longer sampling period.
Energy Provisioning in Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Networks

Wireless rechargeable sensor networks (WRSNs) have emerged as an alternative to solving the challenges of size and operation time posed by traditional battery-powered systems. In this paper, we study a WRSN built from the industrial wireless identification and sensing platform (WISP) and commercial off-the-shelf RFID readers. The paper-thin WISP tags serve as sensors and can harvest energy from RF signals transmitted by the readers. This kind of WRSNs is highly desirable for indoor sensing and activity recognition and is gaining attention in the research community. One fundamental question in WRSN design is how to deploy readers in a network to ensure that the WISP tags can harvest sufficient energy for continuous operation. We refer to this issue as the energy provisioning problem. Based on a practical wireless recharge model supported by experimental data, we investigate two forms of the problem: point provisioning and path provisioning. Point provisioning uses the least number of readers to ensure that a static tag placed in any position of the network will receive a sufficient recharge rate for sustained operation. Path provisioning exploits the potential mobility of tags (e.g., those carried by human users) to further reduce the number of readers necessary: mobile tags can harvest excess energy in power-rich regions and store it for later use in power-deficient regions. Our analysis shows that our deployment methods, by exploiting the physical characteristics of wireless recharging, can greatly reduce the number of readers compared with those assuming traditional coverage models.
Distributed Sensor Networks: A Multiagent Perspective

This book documents results from the DARPA Autonomous Negotiating Teams program, which used a sensor network testbed to illustrate the utility of their advances. That, in essence, is what I dislike about this book. I find it a misnomer to market this book as a sensor networks book. It is an agents technology book. There are some aspects of artificial intelligence that I have always been wary of. Some of this goes back to a French AI company I worked for that went bankrupt. One of my professors referring to an AI specialty as the ‘‘best way to guarantee being unemployed’’ probably did nothing to counter that tendency. Agents technology is one area that I have always been hesitant about. There are some agents research groups that I greatly admire, the people at the Santa Fe Institute and Soundar Kumara at Penn State, for example. But for the unwashed masses of agents papers, I have always felt like I was watching a snake oil peddler. This attitude colors my feeling of seeing an agents technology book marketed as a sensor network text. In terms of agents technologies, the articles probably represent advances in the art. In terms of sensor networks technologies, I found the problems addressed to be contrived and unrealistic. I found the solutions proposed to be not very useful. I really did not like this book.
Advanced library characterization for high-performance ASIC

Texas Instruments ASIC Division (TI) has developed a highly accurate and flexible statistical characterization technique using equations to predict delay performance. A 21-term polynomial equation is described which accurately predicts individual cell delays as a nonlinear function of supply voltage, temperature, process variation, input slew time (rise and fall time), and output loading. The accuracy and flexibility of this technique is contrasted with traditional, less sophisticated methods. <<ETX>>
Problem-heap: A Paradigm for Multiprocessor Algorithms

The problem-heap paradigm has evolved through four years of experiments with the Multi-Maren multiprocessor. Problem-heap algorithms have been formulated for a number of different tasks such as numerical problems, sorting, searching and optimization. Although these tasks are very different, the analyses of the running times of all the problem-heap algorithms are very similar. The problem-heap paradigm is illustrated by algorithms which have been implemented and analyzed using the Multi-Maren multiprocessor.
Leveraging Commodity Photonics to Reduce Datacenter Network Latency

Most datacenter network (DCN) designs focus on maximizing bisection bandwidth rather than minimizing server-to-server latency. They are, therefore, ill-suited for important latency-sensitive applications, such as high performance computing, realtime analytic systems and high-frequency financial trading. Although there are a number of existing approaches to reduce network latency, they are only partially effective, workload dependent, and often require network protocol changes. In this thesis, we explore architectural approaches to building a low-latency DCN and introduce Quartz, a new optical design element consisting of a full mesh of switches connected by an optical ring. We can reduce the network latency of a hierarchical or random network by replacing portions of it with a Quartz ring. Our analysis shows that, in a standard 3-tier DCN, replacing high port-count core switches with Quartz can significantly reduce switching delays, and replacing groups of top-of-rack and aggregation switches with Quartz can significantly reduce congestion-related delays from cross-traffic. We overcome the complexity of wiring a complete mesh by using low-cost optical multiplexers that enable us to efficiently implement a logical mesh as a physical ring. We evaluate our performance using both simulations and a small working prototype. Our evaluation results confirm our analysis, and demonstrate that it is possible to build low-latency DCNs using inexpensive commodity elements without significant concessions to cost, scalability, or wiring complexity.
A design method for stable fuzzy LQR controllers

While successful in many industry applications, fuzzy control still lacks formal analysis and design techniques that allow the designer to guarantee basic closed-loop features, such as stability. In this paper a systematic fuzzy controller design procedure is proposed. Its main features are: 1) it uses a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy controller; 2) it is applicable to nonlinear plants in controllable canonical form; 3) it guarantees closed loop stability; and 4) it allows the use of linear design techniques to determine consequent parameters. The proposed design method is illustrated with an example.
Ultra-wideband communications: an idea whose time has come

Summary form only given. In February 2002, a law-and-order of the federal communications commission (FCC) gave the "green light" (spectral mask in the range 3.1-10.6 GHz) for commercial applications of ultra wideband (UWB) systems. Since this recent FCC release, UWB has emerged as an exciting technology whose "time has come" for wireless communications, and local area networking. Conveying information over ultra-short waveforms, UWB technology allows for very accurate delay estimates providing position and localization capabilities within a few centimeters. The scarcity of bandwidth resources coupled with the capability of IR to overlay existing systems, welcomes UWB connectivity in the workplace, and at home for indoor and especially short range wireless links. However, to realize these attractive features, UWB research and development has to cope with formidable challenges. This plenary will provide the fundamentals of UWB communication systems, driving applications, recent developments, and open problems.
Breathing Ontological Knowledge Into Feature Model Management

Feature Models (FMs) are a popular formalism for modeling and reasoning about the configurations of a software product line. As the manual construction or management of an FM is time-consuming and error-prone for large software projects, recent works have focused on automated operations for reverse engineering or refactoring FMs from a set of configurations/dependencies. Without prior knowledge, meaningless ontological relations (as defined by the feature hierarchy and groups) are likely to be synthesized and cause severe difficulties when reading, maintaining or exploiting the resulting FM. In this paper we define a generic, ontological-aware synthesis procedure that guides users when identifying the likely siblings or parent candidates for a given feature. We develop and evaluate a series of heuristics for clustering/weighting the logical, syntactic and semantic relationships between features. Empirical experiments on hundreds of FMs, coming from the SPLOT repository and Wikipedia, show that an hybrid approach mixing logical and ontological techniques outperforms state-of-the-art solutions and offers the best support for reducing the number of features a user has to consider during the interactive selection of a hierarchy.
The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms

This is the new-in-paperback edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms, the much-awaited sixth edition of the acclaimed standard reference work in statistics, published on behalf of the International Statistical Institute. The first edition, known as the Dictionary of Statistical Terms, was edited in 1957 by the late Sir Maurice Kendall and the late Dr W.R. Buckland. As one of the first dictionaries of statistics it set high standards for the subject, and became a well-respected reference. This edition has been carefully updated and extended to include the most recent terminology and techniques in statistics. Significant revision and expansion from an international editorial board of senior statisticians has resulted in a comprehenisive reference text which includes 30% more material than previous editions. Ideal for all who use statistics in the workplace and in research including all scientists and social scientists, especially in law, politics, finance, business, and history, it is an indispensable reference.
Deriving authentication for pervasive security

In this paper we discuss some of the challenges and opportunities offered to authentication by pervasive computing and discuss the work we are doing in developing formal and graphical systems for reasoning about and understanding the security of protocols in pervasive computing. We provide an example of the verification of a proximity authentication protocol that uses several different types of channels to achieve its goals.
AN ERROR ANALYSIS ON USING ADJECTIVE CLAUSE OF THE SECOND YEAR STUDENT OF SMA NEGERI 1 KEBAKKRAMAT

The study aims to describe the kinds of errors made by the second year student of SMA Negeri 1 Kebakkramat in using adjective clauses, to describe the number of errors of each type of adjective clause, to classify error which has the highest and the lowest number. This research applied descriptive research was done in SMA N 1 Kebakkramat. The writer took second year students ( XI IPA 3 and X I IPS I ) as the subject of study. In collecting the data, the writer uses a test as an instrument. The test consists 20 items. In analyzing data the writer use descriptive method that includes collecting the data, identifying error from the student’s answer sheets, classifying errors based on each type of object, describing the frequency of error based on the type of adjective clause. The result of the study shows that the total errors made by the students is (27,7) out of the 1000 student’s answers. The errors of adjective clause as a subject pronoun : 51 (18,41%), as the object of a verb and as the object of preposition:106 (38,27) and showing possession: 120 (43,32 %). The highest frequency of error is adjective clause to show possession, while the lowest frequency is adjective clause as the subject of pronoun. The student’s errors are divided into four categories, omission : 31 (11,20% ), addition : 76 (27,44% ), misformation : 137 (49,45%), misformation : 33 (11,91% ). The highest frequency of category of errors is misformation and the lowest frequency is omission. The dominant source of errors are interlingual transfer and intarlingual transfer. This research show that the students still make errors in using adjective clause and they need improvement to develop their skill especially in learning adjective clause.