Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Family history tools for primary care are not ready yet to be implemented. A systematic review

Abstract Background: Taking the family history helps the doctor in estimating the probability of disease in individual patients. However, significant barriers to obtaining adequate family history information remain. Tools overcoming these barriers might support family physicians in this task. Objective: To review systematically the characteristics of existing family history tools and discuss their potential use in primary care. Methods: Studies were identified through searches of PubMed, Embase and Cinahl from 1 January 2002 until May 2012. All authors independently screened studies and included original research papers on family history tools of which assessment had been performed or was planned. We reviewed diseases for which family history information was collected, study setting, tool design, type of family history collection, presence of risk-assessment and recommendations for management, and assessment (categorized as either validity or benefit). Results: Eighteen family history tools were identified: six generic, two on cardiovascular disease and ten on cancer. The six generic tools were partly tested in primary care (3x), are mainly computerized (4x), rarely include management recommendations for the physician (1x) and were partly validated against a reference standard (genetic counsellor) (3x, plus one planned). Of the five specific tools studied in primary care, none was validated. No family history tool allows electronic transfer of family history information to electronic medical record systems. Use of a family history tool improved identification of patients at risk for disease. Conclusion: Several promising family history tools for primary care have been developed but large-scale implementation cannot be advised yet, based on available validation studies.
Head Motion Controlled Electric Wheelchair using PIC Microcontroller

Quadriplegics is paralysis of the lower body in which the person suffering is unable to move his four limbs and torso. Joystick controlled wheelchair cannot be used by such people. Medical devices available in market are complex and costly. This project aims at developing a simple and cost effective wheelchair which suffices their need. The wheelchair designed makes use of head movement to decide the direction of motion. MEMS sensor ADXL335 senses the direction of movement of head and sends it to PIC microcontroller PIC 16F877A. The controller converts analog to digital signal followed by serial transmission and reception. H bridge circuit is used to drive two motors which move the wheelchair in the specific direction. The control circuit was simulated and tested in Proteus software. The hardware of control circuit was tested on a wheelchair.
Structured Counseling for Auditory Dynamic Range Expansion

Abstract A structured counseling protocol is described that, when combined with low-level broadband sound therapy from bilateral sound generators, offers audiologists a new tool for facilitating the expansion of the auditory dynamic range (DR) for loudness. The protocol and its content are specifically designed to address and treat problems that impact hearing-impaired persons who, due to their reduced DRs, may be limited in the use and benefit of amplified sound from hearing aids. The reduced DRs may result from elevated audiometric thresholds and/or reduced sound tolerance as documented by lower-than-normal loudness discomfort levels (LDLs). Accordingly, the counseling protocol is appropriate for challenging and difficult-to-fit persons with sensorineural hearing losses who experience loudness recruitment or hyperacusis. Positive treatment outcomes for individuals with the former and latter conditions are highlighted in this issue by incremental shifts (improvements) in LDL and/or categorical loudness judgments, associated reduced complaints of sound intolerance, and functional improvements in daily communication, speech understanding, and quality of life leading to improved hearing aid benefit, satisfaction, and aided sound quality, posttreatment.
Traduction automatique du japonais vers le français

Nous etudions la possibilite de construire un dispositif de traduction automatique neuronale du japonais vers le francais, capable d'obtenir des resultats a la hauteur de l'etat de l'art, sachant que l'on ne peut disposer de grands corpus alignes bilingues. Nous proposons un etat de l'art et relevons de nombreux signes d'amelioration de la qualite des traductions, en comparaison aux traductions statistiques jusque-la predominantes. Nous testons ensuite un des baselines librement disponibles, OpenNMT, qui produit des resultats encourageants. Sur la base de cette experience, nous proposons plusieurs pistes pour ameliorer a terme la traduction et pour compenser le manque de corpus.
Impact of different discharge patterns on bed occupancy rate and bed waiting time: a simulation approach

Beds are one of the most important resources in a healthcare system. How to manage beds efficiently is an important indicator of the efficiency of the healthcare system. Bed management is challenging to many healthcare service providers in many aspects. In recent years, population growth and aging society impose extra pressure on bed requirement. There are usually two key performance indicators of a bed management system: bed occupancy rate and bed waiting time. In this paper, different discharge patterns and their impacts on the bed occupancy rate and bed waiting time are studied. A discrete event simulation model is constructed to evaluate the existing discharge pattern in a Singapore regional hospital using actual hospital admission and discharge transaction data. Then different discharge patterns are tested in the same context. Simulation results show that a proper discharge pattern significantly smoothes the fluctuation of bed occupancy rate and reduce the bed waiting time.
The bZIP Transcription Factor ATFx Binds Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus Type 1 (HTLV-1) Tax and Represses HTLV-1 Long Terminal Repeat-Mediated Transcription

ABSTRACT The human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) viral protein Tax is a transactivator of transcription driven by the cognate viral long terminal repeat (LTR). Tax exerts its effect through three nonidentical copies of the Tax-responsive element (TxRE), a member of the asymmetric cyclic AMP response element (CRE) family of enhancer sequences. Transactivation is mediated via interaction of Tax with members of the CREB/ATF family bound to TxRE. We have identified a cellular repressor of transcription, activating transcription factor x (ATFx), as a novel Tax-binding protein. In addition to binding directly to Tax we show by electrophoretic mobility shift assay that ATFx binds to the TxRE enhancer element via the bZIP domain. The functional impact of this bridging interaction results in repression of both basal and Tax-induced transcription from the HTLV-1 LTR. ATFx is unique among ATF family of proteins in that it is cell cycle regulated and exerts a tight repressive control over apoptotic signaling. We propose that recruitment of ATFx to the HTLV-1 LTR serves to link viral transcription with critical events in cellular homeostasis.
Report from the OMERACT Hand Osteoarthritis Working Group: Set of Core Domains and Preliminary Set of Instruments for Use in Clinical Trials and Observational Studies

Objective. During OMERACT 12, a workshop was held with the aim to endorse a core set of domains for 3 settings: clinical trials of symptom and structure modification and observational studies. Additional goals were to endorse a core set of contextual factors for these settings, and to define preliminary instruments for each core domain. Finally, an agenda for future research in hand osteoarthritis (OA) was to be proposed. Methods. Literature reviews of preliminary instruments for each core domain of the proposed core set for hand OA in the settings described above. Literature review of radiographic scoring methods and modern imaging in hand OA were also performed. Proposed contextual factors for a core set were identified through 2 Delphi exercises with participation of hand OA experts, patient partners, and OMERACT participants. Results. Results from Delphi exercises and systematic literature reviews were presented and discussed. It was agreed that a preliminary core domain set for the setting clinical trials of symptom modification should contain at least “pain, physical function, patient global assessment, joint activity and hand strength. ” The settings clinical trial of structure modification and observational studies would in addition include structural damage. Preliminary instruments for the proposed domains were agreed on. A list of prioritized contextual factors was defined and endorsed for further research. A research agenda was proposed for domain instrument validation according to the OMERACT Filter 2.0. Conclusion. Preliminary core sets for clinical trials of symptom and structure modification and observational studies in hand osteoarthritis, including preliminary instruments and contextual factors, were agreed upon during OMERACT 12.
Relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: on the threshold of new therapies.

Chemoimmunotherapy has been the most significant step in recent years to improving overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma ­(DLBCL). [1] Despite this major therapeutic advance, a significant proportion of patients will relapse or remain refractory to initial chemoimmunotherapy. The pivotal PARMA trial confirmed the place of high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) as the optimum salvage treatment.
Using Argument Structure to Disambiguate Verb Meaning

This study proposes a methodology to disambiguate verb meaning in terminographic resources. To this end, the underlying approach used for verb entries description in the environmental knowledge base EcoLexicon has been applied (Buendía, Montero and Faber 2014; Faber and Buendía 2014). The description is based on three parameters: (i) the nuclear meaning of the verb (i.e. its lexical domain, as proposed by the Lexical Grammar Model (Faber & Mairal 1999); (ii) its meaning dimension (i.e. the lexical subdomain); (iii) its predicate-argument structure highlighting the semantic categories of the arguments. Our study proves that a verb can activate different meaning dimensions in different lexical domains, depending on the semantic categories, or different roles (Van Valin 2005) of its arguments. This way of describing verb meaning according to lexical domains and subdomains, semantic roles and semantic categories helps to disambiguate verbs and represent their meaning in specialized resources.
An Image Dehazing Model considering Multiplicative Noise and Sensor Blur

A restoration model considering the data-dependent multiplicative noise, shift-invariant blur, and haze has been introduced in this paper. The proposed strategy adopts a two-step model to perform a single image dehazing under the blurred and noisy observations. The first step uses the well-known dark channel prior method to estimate the transmission of the medium and atmospheric light that signifies the global color of the haze and dehaze the images. The second step performs denoising and deblurring under a Gamma distributed noise setup and a linear blurring artefact. The restoration under the above mentioned setup has quite a few applications in satellite and long-distant telescopic imaging systems, where the captured images are noisy due to atmospheric pressure turbulence and hazy due to the presence of atmospheric dust formation; further they are blurred due to the common device artefacts. The proposed strategy is tested using a large amount of available image-sets and the performance of the model is analysed in detail in the results section.
Characterization and Gene Expression Profiling of Epididymal Sperm Collected from Dead Mithun (Bos Frontalis) Bulls and its Preservation

Conserving the mithun (Bos frontalis), a rare bovine of south-east Asia, could benefit from effective ex situ genetic management and breeding programmes including the use of assisted reproduction. Longterm storage of epididymal sperm collected from dead mithun bulls by cryopreservation, with high survival rate, is essential for the establishment of genetic resource banks of this rare species. A study was therefore conducted to i) characterize the epididymal sperm collected from dead mithun bulls, ii) investigate the effectiveness of epididymal sperm for cryopreservation and iii) to study the expression pattern of genes related to motility (TSSK6 and ADAM5P ) and fertility (PRM1, PRM2, PRM3, Tnp1 and Tnp2) in mithun epididymal sperm. For the purpose, sperm collected from caudal epididymis of eight dead mithun bulls were evaluated for concentration, progressive motility, morphological abnormalities, live sperm counts, acrosome integrity, membrane stability (hypo-osmotic swelling test; HOST) and DNA integrity. Epididymal sperm were cryopreserved using tris-egg yolk-glycerol diluent in liquid nitrogen. Post-thaw quality of the cryopreserved sperm in terms of progressive motility, morphological abnormalities, live cell counts, acrosome integrity, membrane stability and DNA integrity were assessed. The RNA extracted from fresh and post-thawed cryopreserved epididymal sperm was reverse transcribed to cDNA and expressions of the genes related to motility and fertility
Comparative multiplex analysis of cytokines, chemokines and growth factors in follicular fluid of normoresponder women undergoing ovum donation with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist versus gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist protocols

BACKGROUND: Conflicting results were yielded about the superiority of gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRH-a) versus gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist (GnRH-ant) protocols used in ovarian stimulation in in vitro fertilization (IVF) set-up. Reports also indicate that any single specific individual marker in follicular fluid collected at the time of oocyte retrieval bears inconclusive value as a predictor of oocyte quality. AIMS: Simultaneous analyses of large numbers of cytokines, chemokines and growth factors in ovarian follicular fluid and perifollicular vascularity in both protocols for ovarian stimulation in IVF program to address the above mentioned lacunae. SETTINGS AND DESIGNS: Normoresponder women (n = 45) were subjected to either GnRH-a (Group 1; n = 23) or GnRH-ant (Group 2; n = 22) for ovarian stimulation in IVF clinics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The fluid samples of dominant follicles collected at oocyte retrieval from women in Group 1 (GnRH-a; n = 20) and Group 2 (GnRH-ant; n = 16) were used for simultaneous quantitative assays of 48 cytokines. Perifollicular vascularity was assessed by Doppler hemodynamics to assess the ovarian vascular response in all participants in Groups 1 and 2. RESULTS: Despite demographic and reproductive parameters studied remained comparable, higher follicular fluid concentration of interleukins, IL-3 (P < 0.01), IL12p70 (P < 0.05) and vascular endothelial growth factor (P < 0.01), P4 (P < 0.05) and pulsatility index (P < 0.04) along with a lower number of oocytes in metaphase II stage (P < 0.03) was observed in Group 2 compared with Group 1. GnRH-a protocol appeared to be superior to GnRH-ant protocol for ovarian stimulation in normoresponder women.
Design of a small resonant antenna using metamaterial based on transmission line approach

In modern wireless devices, a compact size antenna is required due to the limited space available for an antenna. Since the experimental verification of metamaterial [1], much studies have been performed on small antenna using metamaterial. Recently, composite right/left-handed (CRLH) resonant antennas have become of particular interest. In this paper, a CRLH resonant antenna using interdigital capacitor (IDC) and complementary split-ring resonator (CSRR) is proposed, and the transmission line (TL) approach is adopted for the analysis.
An Analytical Study of SIFT and SURF in Image Registration

This paper present point matching using Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF) and scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) and comparison between them and removing outliers using Restricted Spatial Order Constrains (RSOC) in image registration. Surf outperforms previously proposed schemes with respect to repeatability, distinctiveness, and robustness Computed and compared much faster. This is achieved by relying on integral images for image Convolution; by building on the strength of the leading existing detectors and descriptors. RSOC is proposed to remove outliers for registering image with monotonous back ground, simple patterns, low overlapping areas, and large affine transform. Based on adjacent spatial order, an affine invariant descriptor is defined in RSOC. In order to eliminate dubious matches, a filtering strategy is designed. The strategy integrates two way spatial order constraints and two decision criteria restrictions, i.e. the stability and accuracy of transformation error.
Liquid Haskell: Haskell as a Theorem Prover

Author(s): Vazou, Niki | Advisor(s): Jhala, Ranjit | Abstract: Code deficiencies and bugs constitute an unavoidable part of software systems. In safety-critical systems, like aircrafts or medical equipment, even a single bug can lead to catastrophic impacts such as injuries or death. Formal verification can be used to statically track code deficiencies by proving or disproving correctness properties of a system. However, at its current state formal verification is a cumbersome process that is rarely used by mainstream developers, mostly because it targets non general purpose languages (e.g., Coq, Agda, Dafny). We present Liquid Haskell, a usable program verifier that aims to establish formal verification as an integral part of the development process. Liquid Haskell naturally integrates the specification of correctness propertiesas logical refinements of Haskell's types. Moreover, it uses the abstract interpretation framework of liquid types to automatically check correctness of specifications via Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) solversrequiring no explicit proofs or complicated annotations. Finally, the specification language is arbitrary expressive, allowing the user to write general correctness properties about their code, thus turning Haskell into a theorem prover. Transforming a mature language --- with optimized libraries and highly tuned parallelism --- into a theorem prover enables us to verify a wide variety of properties on real world applications. We used Liquid Haskell to verify shallow invariants of existing Haskell code, e.g., memory safety of the optimized string manipulation library ByteString. Moreover, we checked deep, sophisticated properties of parallel Haskell code, e.g., program equivalence of a naive string matcher and its parallelized version. Having verified about 20K of Haskell code, we present how Liquid Haskell serves as a prototype verifier in a future where formal techniques will be used to facilitate, instead of hinder, software development.
Factors affecting morbidity and mortality after surgery for obstructive jaundice: a review of 373 patients.

A retrospective study of 373 patients undergoing surgery for relief of bile duct obstruction identified three independent factors associated with increased postoperative morbidity and mortality. These three factors were: (i) an initial haematocrit of 30% or less; (ii) an initial plasma bilirubin of greater than 200 ,umol/l; (iii) a malignant obstructing lesion. The presence of two or all three of these risk factors identified a group of patients with a one third postoperative mortality and it is in this group of patients that preliminary non-operative or definitive non-operative biliary drainage might prove most useful.
Color image processing using a generalized directional distance-rational hybrid filters

This paper describes a new class of nonlinear filters called the Generalized Directional Distance Rational Hybrid Filters (GDDRHF) for multispectral image processing. The application at hand is color image filtering problems. The GDDRHF filter is a two-stage filter, which exploits the features of a new directional distance filter, where the temporal information related to the central sample is expressed by their weight, and those of the rational operator. This weight is incorporated to a sum of vector distances and vector angles, so that generalized directional distance rational hybrid filters will provide larger design possibility than standard vector directional distance rational hybrid filters VDDRHF. Thus, the VDDRHF is a special case of the GDDRHF. The GDDRHF includes other special cases such as the vector median rational hybrid filters (VMRHF), the vector directional distance rational hybrid filters (VDDRHF), the center weighted vector median rational hybrid filters (CWVMRHF), and the center weighted directional distance rational hybrid filters (CWDDRHF). Experimental results show that the new GDDRHF outperforms a number of widely known nonlinear filters for multi-spectral image processing with respect to all criteria used.
A computer-assisted prosody pronunciation teaching system

Work in the last decade shows, that Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Teaching (CAPT) systems are useful, flexible tools for giving pronunciation instructions and evaluating at subject’s speech. This paper describes a newly developed CAPT system that intends to address appropriate teaching of such supra-segmental parameters as intonation, stress and speech rhythm. Two modules are implemented: (1) intonation and stress teaching, and (2) rhythm teaching using dynamic time warping. The automatic feedback of the system is evaluated by using speech samples from hard of hearing children. The automatic assessment methods give automatic feedback that is consistent with the subjective decisions of teachers. Visual feedback was also proposed which is based on the dynamic time warping algorithm and gives simple and understandable visualization of the intonation and rhythm of the subject’s utterance.