Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Prognostic Value of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Hepatocellular Carcinoma for Predicting Metastasis after Curative Resection

Objectives: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) frequently recurs even after curative resection. The purpose of this study was to identify factors predictive for postoperative recurrence of HCC in patients who underwent curative resection using immunohistochemistry. Methods: Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), E-cadherin and cyclin D1 in HCC tissue were analyzed for 133 HCC patients who underwent curative resection of tumors using immunohistochemical analysis. Relationships of expressions and disease-free survival of HCC were evaluated using univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: The average period of follow-up of the patients was 6.7 years. Multivariate analyses revealed that only strong expression of VEGF in HCC tissue was significantly associated with metastatic recurrence (p < 0.001, hazard ratio, HR, 3.32). Conclusions: Evaluating VEGF in HCC tissue after surgical resection has predictive value for metastatic HCC recurrence. The ability to risk stratify should improve the treatment strategies after hepatectomy.
Preferencias alimentarias de Triatoma dimidiata (Hemiptera: Reduvíidae) procedente de la meseta central de Costa Rica a finales del siglo XX

RESUMEN Se colectaron 267 ejemplares de Triatoma dimidiata procedentes de comunidades costarricenses ubicadas en tres regiones epidemiologicamente importantes por la Enfermedad de Chagas. A partir de cada insecto, se prepararon extractos de contenido intestinal los cuales fueron utilizados para determinar la presencia de sangres de diferentes vertebrados en un sistema de doble inmunodifusion (Outcherlony). Tambien los insectos fueron sometidos a un analisis de contenido fecal para determinar la posible infeccion con T. cruzi. El 67% de las muestras fue positiva por sangre de humano, lo que constituyo la fuente de alimentacion mas importante (p < 0,05). Tambien fue notable la presencia de sangre de perro en los vectores analizados (49,8%). Las sangres de rata, raton, didelfidos y gallinas se encontraron en porcentajes menores al 15,0%. A pesar de que no se pudo observar una ornitofila manifiesta, cuando las preferencias alimentarias fueron organizadas como cate-gorias exhaustivas y mutuamente excluyentes, la sangre de gallina constituyo la segunda categoria en frecuencia lo que denota que los triatominos pueden utilizar este sustrato alimenticio cuando la sangre humana y canina no estan disponibles. Los porcentajes de infeccion por T. cruzi fueron altamente positivos en los insectos positivos por sangres de didelfidos y ratones, lo que sugiere el papel que estos animales podrian jugar con reservorios silvestres y domicilios de T. cruzi.
Forkhead Box P Family Members at the Crossroad Between Tolerance and Immunity: A Balancing Act

Maintaining an immune balance between a chronic inflammatory state and autoimmunity is regulated at multiple levels by complex cellular signaling mechanisms. Numerous immune stimu- latory and inhibitory signals converge on a large variety of transcriptional regulators. One key transcriptional regulator of immune homeostasis is FOXP3, which is a member of the Forkhead Box P subfamily of transcription factors and was shown to be essential for the development and maintenance of regulatory T cells. However, other FOXP members have received less attention in relation to a role in immune regulation. Still, recent developments point toward a general important regulatory role for FOXP proteins in the development and function of the adaptive immune system and establishment of a balanced immune response. Here, we discuss the current knowledge on the role of FOXP proteins in establishing immune homeostasis with an emphasis on T-cell biology. Furthermore, we review and speculate about different modes of regulating general FOXP activity and the function of this in health and disease.
Bit-interleaved pragmatic space-time codes: design and code construction

This paper addresses the design of bit-interleaved pragmatic space-time codes (BI-PSTC) over block fading channels (BFC). BI-PSTC are obtained with the serial concatenation of a convolutional encoder, a bit-interleaver and a space-time mapper, whereas the decoder is based on a Viterbi algorithm which uses suitably defined branch metrics. Here, a method for good BI-PSTC construction, which exploits the concept of generalized transfer function for space-time codes over BFC, is proposed. Codes for QPSK constellations achieving a considerable coding gain over known space-time codes are then derived. Different spectral efficiencies and fading rates (taken into account by the BFC model) are investigated.
On the Value of Improved Informativeness

One of the main predictions of principal-agent theory, the “informativeness principle”, is often violated in practice. We propose an explanation that emphasizes the role played by the change in the form of the optimal contract that follows an improvement in informativeness. We show that the overall gains from a less noisy performance measure emanate from two sources: the direct effect of a change in the volatility of the performance measure, and the effect of the induced change on the form of the optimal compensation contract. We emphasize that the direct effect can either largely under-estimate or largely overtimate the overall gains from improved informativeness, and we show that these gains can even be nil in some instances.
New evidence on the Affordable Care Act: coverage impacts of early medicaid expansions.

The Affordable Care Act expands Medicaid in 2014 to millions of low-income adults in states that choose to participate in the expansion. Since 2010 California, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., have taken advantage of the law's option to expand coverage earlier to a portion of low-income childless adults. We present new data on these expansions. Using administrative records, we documented that the ramp-up of enrollment was gradual and linear over time in California, Connecticut, and D.C. Enrollment continued to increase steadily for nearly three years in the two states with the earliest expansions. Using survey data on the two earliest expansions, we found strong evidence of increased Medicaid coverage in Connecticut (4.9 percentage points; $$p ) and positive but weaker evidence of increased coverage in D.C. (3.7 percentage points; $$p=\mathbf{\boldsymbol{0.08}}$$). Medicaid enrollment rates were highest among people with health-related limitations. We found evidence of some crowd-out of private coverage in Connecticut (30-40 percent of the increase in Medicaid coverage), particularly for healthier and younger adults, and a positive spillover effect on Medicaid enrollment among previously eligible parents.
The Impact of Technological Distance on M&A Target Choice and Transaction Value

Using a sample of 538 M&A transactions covering public and private firms in a wide range of predominantly high technology industries, I investigate how the innovation characteristics of the target as well as the technological and product market distance between the target and the acquirer affect the acquirer’s choice of M&A targets and the transaction price. I show that the existence of an inverted U-shape relationship between technological distance and the likelihood of being chosen as a target is not very robust. The higher the product market (technological) distance between the acquirer and the target, the more do acquirers prefer firms which are close in technological (product market) space. Regarding the role of acquirer characteristics, I find that the lower the acquirer’s patenting growth and return on assets, the more technologically distant firms are chosen. The relationship between technological distance and the transaction price is also investigated parametrically and semi-parametrically, but no statistically robust inverted U-shape relationship is found. I also provide explanations for the apparent inconsistency between the evidence found herein and previous studies on the impact of technological distance on post M&A innovation performance.
Prenatal Diagnosis of Congenital Mesoblastic Nephroma in 2 Siblings

Congenital mesoblastic nephroma (CMN) is the most frequent renal tumor of early infancy. 1 Usually benign, CMN is also referred to as leiomyomatous hamartoma or fetal renal hamartonia. 2,3 However, local recurrence and distant metastasis have been reported, questioning the concept of CMN as a simple hamartoma. 4-6 Initially, CMN was considered a congenital Wilms tumor but was later classified as its own tumor entity. 7 Contrary to a Wilms tumor, no genetic inheritance has been identified so far. Cytogenetic abnormalities such as trisomy 11 occur sporadically. 8-10 We report a rare case of prenatal diagnosis of CMN in a dichorionic twin pregnancy with an older sibling who was affected by the same tumor entity. Close sonographic follow-up with targeted examination of the fetal kidneys at each scan enabled us to identify the late onset of tumor development after 34 weeks' gestation. No polyhydramnios was present in this case. The impact of these observations on clinical management is discussed.
On finding word-level break-type formation rules for mandarin read speech

This paper presents a study on exploring word-level break-type formation rules for Mandarin read speech. A 4-layer hierarchical structure with seven break types is adopted to represent the prosody of utterance. The work is based on the break-type tags labeled on a large read-speech database by the prosody labeling and modeling algorithm (PLM) proposed previously. Occurrence frequencies of seven break types for pre- and post-boundaries of several types of function words are calculated and taken as the inferred statistical break-type formation rules. Linguistic interpretations of the most likely break types occurred at pre- and post-boundaries of each function word are discussed. Some exceptions that deviate from the most likely break types are also examined.
Patient with dyschromatosis symmetrica hereditaria treated with miniature punch grafting, followed by excimer light therapy

Nao KIMURA, Gojiro NAKAGAMI, Kimie TAKEHARA, Yuka MIURA, Tetsuro NAKAMURA, Makoto KAWASHIMA, Yuichiro TSUNEMI, Hiromi SANADA Department of Gerontological Nursing/Wound Care Management, The University of Tokyo, Department of Nursing Administration, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Abe Clinic, and Department of Dermatology, Tokyo Women’s Medical University, Tokyo, Japan REFERENCES
Miniaturization of planar microstrip filters with coupled resonators

This paper presents a new procedure for the miniaturization of microwave filter realized in microstrip technology. This filter is coupled resonator filter and the desired selectivity is achieved by adjusting the nonadjacent coupling between resonators. The new implementation proposes replacement of open-loop resonators with modified quarter-wavelength resonators to reduce the footprint area. In order to verify the proposed procedure, the fourth-order filter with relative bandwidth of 0.1 and the center frequency at 2 GHz has been implemented. The proposed method has achieved a reduction of the footprint area for more than 40% compared to the standard implementation with the open-loop resonators.
Active role of a NFC enabled smartphone in EV-EVSE charging process

Management of charge of electrical vehicles (EV) can be effectively integrated in a Vehicle To Grid (V2G) system. This regulated operation is described in the ISO/IEC 15118 standard. We propose a modification of the original protocol: in our scheme the smartphone has an active role in the EV - EVSE communication, being able to integrate itself in the EV charge. We developed an application for Android smartphone affords to the customer to completely control the process of charge in all its phases: authentication to the service, choice of the charge parameters, monitoring of the charge and payment. To obtain that, a modification to standard ISO/IEC 15118 is proposed. Actually, only the communication between vehicle (EV) and station (EVSE) is permitted. In our proposed model, the communication between vehicle, station and smartphone is realized in wireless mode through the Bluetooth protocol, introducing the active role of the smartphone. The App use NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, in order to simplify and to accelerate the Bluetooth login operation, V2G service authentication and related payment. Two specific PC-Windows software are developed, simulating the behaviors of the electrical vehicle (EV) and of the charge station (EVSE) according the standard. Moreover, a reusable NFC library has been developed to permit immediate authentication and two-ways transmission session, using Bluetooth and NFC in p2p mode.
Transcriptional crosstalk between TGFβ and stem cell pathways in tumor cell invasion: Role of EMT promoting Smad complexes

Tumor cells undergoing the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) acquire the capacity to migrate, invade the stroma and metastasize. EMT cells also acquire stem cell characteristics suggesting crosstalk between EMT and stem cell pathways and contribution of the EMT process to the generation of cancer stem cells. Indeed, transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β), a major inducer of EMT, cooperates with stem cell pathways like Wnt, Ras, Hedgehog and Notch to induce EMT. A molecular basis for this cooperative signaling is indicated by recent data showing that many EMT associated transcription factors like Snail1, Zeb1/2, Twist, β-catenin, Lef/TCF, Foxc2 and AP-1 interact with Smads and form EMT promoting Smad complexes (EPSC) engaged in both repressing epithelial genes and activating mesenchymal genes. Thus, formation and activation of EPSC seems to represent a point of convergence between EMT and stem cell pathways. Here, we review our current understanding of the mechanisms involved in the transcriptional crosstalk between TGF-β and stem cell pathways and discuss how a fundament for the activation of these mechanisms may lead to the induction of EMT in tumors.
Robust task scheduling of multi-satellite parallel test

This paper mainly deals with task scheduling of multi-satellite parallel test with priority under uncertainty. The robustness of the schedule is so important that it must be considered to avoid delay. On the base of the definition of two robustness measures of a schedule, the problem is formulated into a bi-objective model with objectives of makespan minimization and robustness maximization. Furthermore, an algorithm for robust task scheduling of multi-satellite parallel test is proposed to solve the bi-objective model. The experiment justifies the effectiveness and efficiency of our model and algorithm to solve this problem.
Enhanced the security of image steganography through image encryption

Steganography and Cryptography are two integral parts of information security. Cryptography is the science of using mathematics to encrypt and decrypt data; the data are converted into some other gibberish form, and then the encrypted data are transmitted. Steganography is the art of hidden communications, encoding/embedding hidden information in cover media in such a way so as not to provoke an eavesdropper's suspicion. If a message is encrypted and hidden with a steganographic method it provides an additional layer of protection and reduces the chance of the hidden message being detected. The primary purpose of this paper is to provide two levels of security through a two step process, rather than hidden the message bits directly in cover image, they are scrambled in a random order generated by 2D Arnold Cat Map after that encrypted message is hidden behind a cover image using basic LSB method. MSE (Mean Square Error) and PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) are two common quality measurements to measure the difference between the cover-image and the stego-image. Results showed that the proposed method gives better results than simple LSB with higher PSNR and lower MSE.
An octave-scale multiband spectral subtraction noise reduction method for speech enhancement

A new Noise Subtraction Factor (NSF) is proposed in this paper for Multi-Band Spectral Subtraction (MBSS) method. The proposed NSF is a non-linear function of the band Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) for each pre-defined octave band. This NSF adjusts each acoustic band to compensate human auditory perception. Simulation results based on NOIZEUS database demonstrate that the proposed NSF for the MBSS method outperforms the traditional MBSS technique, especially at low input SNR levels. The residual noise in the enhanced speech signal remains minimum while the speech distortion is less perceived.
Study of nasal carriage of MRSA among the clinical staff and health care workers of a teaching hospital of Karnataka, India

Objective: The present study was conducted to evaluate the rate of nasal carriage of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus among the clinical staff and health careworkers working at our hospital with an aim to prevent the hospital acquired infections. Background: Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonisation precedes infection, anterior nares being the ecological niches of Staphylcoccus aureus . Carriage of Staphylococcus aureus in the nose appears to play a key role in the epidemiology and pathogenesis of infection. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus is usually introduced into an institution by a colonised or infected patient or a healthcare worker.When nose is treated topically to eliminate nasal carriage, in most cases the organism also disappears from other areas of the body like groin, axilla, umbilicus, and hands. Methods: A total of 200 nasal swabs were collected, out of which 140 were from the nursing staff and 60 were from clinical staff. Sterile cotton swabs moistened with sterile saline were used for sample collection. Swabs were cultured on to blood agar, and mannitol salt agar, incubated at 37 o C for 24 hrs. Staphylococcus aureus was identified by standard methods according to CLSI guidelines. Methicillin resistance was detected by using cefoxitin disc 30µgm on Mueller Hinton agar with 4% NaCl. Results: Of the 200 samples screened 45 (43.6%) strains of Staphylococcus aureus were isolated, out of which 24 (12%) were. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and 21 (10%) were methicillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA). The overall carriage rate of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus in our study was 12% with the highest rate being seen among the nursing staff (12.2%) and clinical staff carriage rate was slightly less (11.7%) as compared to the nursing staff. Conclusion: Our study revealed that nursing staff were the potential colonisers of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus when compared to clinical staff. These carriers may serve as reservoir and disseminator of MRSA, and should be treated with mupirocin 3 times daily for 5 days. So regular screening of carriers is required for the prevention of nosocomial infection.
Producción colaborativa entre iguales y ciudad: una aproximación

La informacion y el conocimiento han sido, desde siempre, fuente de poder y riqueza. Sin embargo, lo que es definitorio de la Sociedad Red, a diferencia de lo que ha ocurrido con las sociedades precedentes, es que tanto la informacion como el conocimiento que de ella se deriva ya no estan exclusivamente en manos de unos pocos que formaban parte de una elite social (iglesia, gremios, o, mas recientemente, conglomerados y grupos multimedia), sino que estan al alcance de la mayoria. Asi pues, actualmente vivimos un paradigma informacionalista (Castells, 2006, p. 41) en el que bidireccionalidad, cooperacion y multitud son conceptos clave del mismo que han revolucionado totalmente la manera en que se produce, se distribuye y consume la informacion, entendida esta en su sentido mas amplio de la palabra. Podemos encontrar dos grandes motores de cambio en esta revolucion: por un lado, el abaratamiento de la tecnologia y de las infraestructuras que ha hecho que producir y distribuir informacion sea algo cotidiano. Por otro, las posibilidades que ofrecen innovaciones tecnologicas y sociales como la web 2.0, wikis, redes sociales, plataformas de crowdfunding, smartphones. Todo ello ha puesto en jaque a entornos que tradicionalmente han sido unidireccionales, jerarquizados y controlados por un sector concreto de poblacion, como son la comunicacion, la formacion, la cultura, el ocio o, incluso, el consumo. Todos ellos han visto tambalear sus cimientos y han tenido que reformularse, no ya para tratar de conservar su supremacia, sino para poder sobrevivir.
A Case of Congenital Hypopituitarism Associated With a 1p31 Microdeletion: A Possible Role for LEPR and JAK1

Context: Genetic defects affecting the expression and function of factors involved in pituitary development have been found to be associated with congenital hypopituitarism (CH). However, for most cases of CH, the etiology remains unknown. Case Description: We present an unusual case of an infant with CH, associated with septo-optic dysplasia with an absent anterior pituitary and an ectopic posterior pituitary gland, resulting from a de novo 8.04-Mb interstitial deletion of chromosome 1p31.1-1p31.3. The deleted region includes several genes that might be involved in pituitary development, including LEPR and JAK1. Conclusions: Haploinsufficiency of LEPR and/or JAK1 might be associated with CH. This finding suggests a role for LEPR-mediated glycoprotein 130 signaling in human pituitary development.
L'impact de l'homme et de ses animaux sur la forêt méditerranéenne

Apres avoir rappele le role de l'homme depuis la prehistoire, le role du climat, et quelques considerations sur la vegetation, l'auteur examine dans la 1ere partie l'effet du feu sur les systemes vegetaux et les modalites de leur reconstitution. Dans la 2eme partie on aborde les effets du pâturage, de l'agriculture, de l'industrie, du tourisme et de l'urbanisation. Dans les pays developpes, la foret progresse et dans les pays en voie de developpement, elle regresse.
Performance of Line Arrays of Vector and Higher Order Sensors

Arrays of vector and higher order directional sensors are of current interest in a number of applications. The performance of these arrays as a function of frequency and steering direction is examined. Results are presented for arrays of zero-th order (omni-directional), first order vector (omni + first spatial derivative) and second order combined (omni + first spatial directions derivatives + second spatial derivatives) sensors. The beampattern product theorem provides insight into to contribution of the individual components of the directional sensors. For endfire array steering, previous results are extended to higher order sensors. Only the axial components are important at endfire. Sensors with axial components up to order n can cancel up to n grating lobes providing extra gain up to (n+1) times the design frequency at which the sensors are spaced at one-half wavelength. Away from endfire only the cross-axial components are important. Simple techniques are presented for overcoming left/right ambiguity of horizontal line arrays using only the omni-directional and horizontal cross axial components. The results of simple deterministic processing approaches are found to be near optimum when compared with those achieved by optimum processing based on covariance matrix inversion.