Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Altered systemic iron metabolism in Parkinson's disease

Iron deposition in the substantia nigra in Parkinson's disease has been associated with an increase in lactoferrin receptors and a reduction in ferritin concentration. This accumulation of iron in the brain may accelerate free radical formation, lipid peroxidation, and neuronal death. Remarkably, there are few data available concerning systemic iron metabolism in Parkinson's disease. We measured total iron binding capacity and circulating iron, ferritin, transferrin, and transferrin receptors; calculated transferrin saturation; and estimated dietary iron intake in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and in controls. Concentrations of circulating iron, ferritin, and transferrin as well as total iron binding capacity and transferrin saturation were significantly lower in patients than controls. There were no differences in transferrin receptors or dietary intake of iron. The decrease in levels of systemic ferritin and transferrin and the total iron binding capacity parallels observations in a Parkinson's disease brain, but the reductions in serum iron concentrations and transferrin saturation do not, and were unexpected. These results suggest the existence of a defect in the systems that regulate the synthesis of the major proteins of iron metabolism in the liver as well as the brain in Parkinson's disease that may, over time, expedite entry of iron into the brain and decrease iron in the extracellular compartment.
Medical Journal Club as a New Method of Education: Modifications for Improvement.

BACKGROUND The emerging goals of journal clubs are now considered to be teaching critical appraisal skills and how to use evidence based medicine in practice. Although journal clubs are well accredited, designing the right format to keep members stimulated and educated remains a great challenge. METHODS We conducted journal club structure modifications in internal medicine residency program of a university affiliated hospital. Initially, group-based sessions identified feasible changes and baseline data concerning residents` knowledge of evidence based medicine (EBM) was collected using a questionnaire. Modifications were implemented and a second set of group discussions and data collection took place after 12 months. RESULTS A total of 78 (86.7%) internal medicine residents participated. The most important identified changes were schedule adjustments and setting new goals regarding EBM, medical statistics and critical appraisal teaching. Group discussion showed increased satisfaction and questionnaire assessments showed significant improvement in residents' knowledge of EBM. CONCLUSIONS Redesigning journal clubs with emphasis on regularity and setting new horizons basically improves their effectiveness. Assigning entire sessions to augment participants` skills in new areas of knowledge is a unique way to fit journal clubs as a novel and innovative teaching practice.
Consensus-based recursive distributed filtering with stochastic nonlinearities over sensor networks

In this paper, the distributed filtering problem is addressed for a class of discrete time-varying systems in sensor networks. The stochastic nonlinearities, which are described by first and second-order statistics, enter into both the target plant and the sensor measurements. The goal of the proposed problem is to develop a distributed filter for each sensor node by making use of the topological information of the sensor networks. The consensus process subjected to a given directed graph is proposed to accelerate the information fusion, and then sub-optimal filer gain matrices are obtained by employing the least square method to minimize certain upper bound of the estimation error covariance. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed consensus-based filters.
Current Imaging Paradigms in Radiation Oncology

Abstract Apisarnthanarax, S. and Chao, K. S. C. Current Imaging Paradigms in Radiation Oncology. Radiat. Res. 163, 1–25 (2005). The technological revolution in imaging during recent decades has transformed the way image-guided radiation therapy is performed. Anatomical imaging (plain radiography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging) greatly improved the accuracy of delineating target structures and has formed the foundation of 3D-based radiation treatment. However, the treatment planning paradigm in radiation oncology is beginning to shift toward a more biological and molecular approach as advances in biochemistry, molecular biology, and technology have made functional imaging (positron emission tomography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, optical imaging) of physiological processes in tumors more feasible and practical. This review provides an overview of the role of current imaging strategies in radiation oncology, with a focus on functional imaging modalities, as it relates to staging and molecular profiling (cellular proliferation, apoptosis, angiogenesis, hypoxia, receptor status) of tumors, defining radiation target volumes, and assessing therapeutic response. In addition, obstacles such as imaging-pathological validation, optimal timing of post-therapy scans, spatial and temporal evolution of tumors, and lack of clinical outcome studies are discussed that must be overcome before a new era of functional imaging-guided therapy becomes a clinical reality.
Determining cost-effective multiple issue processor designs

Several commercial processors, including the Motorola 88110 and the DEC Alpha, are capable of issuing multiple operations per clock cycle. Optimization of the pipeline depth and number of function units in these processors has been largely ignored due to limited semiconductor resources. Recently, advances in feature size and packaging technologies have removed these limitations. It is possible that next-generation processor designs may benefit from multiple function unit copies and optimize pipeline depths. The paper investigates the feasibility of performing synthesis at the architectural specification level. The design space is optimized for performance constrained by a hardware model of silicon area. The results of this study indicate that cost-effective high performance can be achieved with the addition of small amounts of function unit duplication. These results are also used to comment on the validity of the "benchmark suite" approach to performance evaluation and machine design. <<ETX>>
Introduction to the west nile virus issue.

West Nile virus (WNV), a flavivirus and member of the Japanese encephalitis virus antigenic complex, has been recognized as a cause of human infection since 1934, but has primarily affected northern Africa, the Middle East, Southern and Eastern Europe, Southwestern Asia, and Australia. By routes
Épidémiologie et histoire naturelle des MICI

Les maladies inflammatoires chroniques de l’intestin (MICI), maladie de Crohn (MC) et rectocolite hémorragique (RCH), sont des affections rares, mais non exceptionnelles. Leur incidence varie de manière importante selon les pays [1] ; elle est plus élevée dans les pays du nord de l’Europe et en Amérique du Nord. L’incidence de la MC est habituellement plus faible que celle de la RCH. La France et la Belgique sont les deux seuls pays où l’incidence de la MC est supérieure à celle de la RCH. En France, les données du registre EPIMAD des MICI dans le nord-ouest de la France montrent une incidence standardisée moyenne annuelle de la MC de 5,6/100 000, alors que celle de la RCH est de 3,7/100000 [2, 3]. Le sex-ratio diffère entre les deux affections. La MC est plus fréquente chez la femme (6,2 x 10) que chez l’homme (5,1 x 10), alors que la RCH est plus fréquente chez l’homme (4,3 x 10) que chez la femme (3,2 x 10) (figures 1 et 2). L’incidence est maximale entre 20 et 29 ans pour la MC et entre 20 et 39 ans pour la RCH avec un profil d’incidence en fonction de l’âge et du sexe très différent entre les 2 affections. Le pic d’incidence de la MC se situe entre 20 et 29 ans, de manière similaire dans les 2 sexes, inversement l’incidence de la RCH augmente dans les 2 sexes jusqu’à un pic situé entre 20 et 29 ans, mais l’incidence diminue ensuite rapidement chez les femmes, alors qu’elle reste relativement élevée jusqu’à la soixantaine chez l’homme (figures 1 et 2). Il est classique d’admettre que, après une période de forte augmentation à partir des années 50, l’incidence des MICI a tendance à croître de manière plus lente, voire à se stabiliser depuis les années 80 dans les pays développés, alors que l’incidence continue à augmenter fortement dans les pays moins développés ayant initialement une incidence faible [1, 4-6]. L’augmentation du risque de MICI pour les Asiatiques migrant en Europe et inversement la diminution du risque chez les Européens migrant dans ces pays sont en faveur de l’existence de facteurs environnementaux dans la pathogénie des MICI [7]. Les données récentes du registre EPIMAD [3], sur une période de 12 ans, montrent une évolution opposée entre la MC, dont l’incidence a augmenté de 5,1 x 10 en 1988 – 1990 à 5,9 x 10 en 1997-1999, et la RCH dont l’incidence a inversement diminué pendant la même période de 4,2 à 2,8 x 10. Une telle évolution de l’incidence de la RCH a déjà été décrite aux ÉtatsUnis et au Danemark [8] (figures 3 et 4). Certaines études font état d’une forte augmentation de l’incidence des formes pédiatriques de MC. Il reste cependant à confirmer que cette évolution correspond à une réelle augmentation de l’incidence de la MC chez l’enfant et non pas à un diagnostic plus précoce de la maladie.
REGULAR ARTICLES The Effect On Type I Error And Power Of Various Methods Of Resolving Ties For Six Distribution-Free Tests Of Location

The impact on Type I error robustness and power for nine different methods of resolving ties was assessed for six distribution-free statistics with four empirical data sets using Monte Carlo techniques. These statistics share an underlying assumption of population continuity such that samples are assumed to have no equal data values (no zero difference–scores, no tied ranks). The best results across all tests and combinations of simulation parameters were obtained by randomly resolving ties, although there were exceptions. The method of dropping ties and reducing the sample size performed poorly.
Neuroactivation imaging using a monogenic framework

Intentions of specific motor movements are known to generate event-related (de)synchronization (ERD/ERS) patterns which may be interpreted as changes in the degree of synchronization of underlying neuronal networks. When activated, the neural populations in a certain region of the brain de-synchronize, leading to a decrease in the EEG power signal. Notably, this phenomena happens not only in time but also in space. Here, we propose a novel method to detect brain activity based on this spatial desynchronization effect. The electrical activity at the scalp is described by a finite dimension continuous 2D field estimated from the EEG data acquired at the discrete locations of the electrodes and analyzed using the monogenic framework. The method was tested with synthetic data and the results are compared with other methods, namely, the traditional power-based ERD/ERS estimation method. It is shown that the proposed approach yields more space-specific and less blurred results than traditional approaches.
Inference-proof Data Filtering for a Probabilistic Setting

In querying semantic data, access control must take into account the information that is implicitly entailed by the accessible part of triple stores and ontologies. While there exist inference control frameworks for this purpose, they still have a limitation: the confidentiality criterion does not take into account the probabilistic knowledge of the attacker. Therefore, the existing controlled query evaluation methods may return answers that actually reveal that a secret is true with very high probability. Given that such probabilistic knowledge is becoming more and more widely available as a result of analytics of various sorts, it is important to develop a refined confidentiality framework where probabilistic knowledge is taken into due account. Accordingly, in this paper, we extend and generalize an abstract data filtering framework for confidentiality-preserving, policybased data publishing. The confidentiality requirement is strengthened so that the probability that a secret is true is bounded by a small constant . We formally define such a probabilistic setting, then we study two greedy data publishing methods based on refusals and lies, respectively. The refusal-based method is proved to be secure and maximally cooperative among a class of “reasonable” methods. We prove also that the natural generalization of the lying method is not secure. Furthermore, we extend the complexity hardness results from the deterministic framework to the probabilistic one.
Anti-CD 20 Antibody Therapy for B-Cell Lymphomas

n engl j med 366;21 nejm.org may 24, 2012 2008 This Journal feature begins with a case vignette that includes a therapeutic recommendation. A discussion of the clinical problem and the mechanism of benefit of this form of therapy follows. Major clinical studies, the clinical use of this therapy, and potential adverse effects are reviewed. Relevant formal guidelines, if they exist, are presented. The article ends with the author’s clinical recommendations. Anti-CD20 Antibody Therapy for B-Cell Lymphomas
Psychiatric morbidity in Chinese women after cervical cancer treatment in a regional gynaecology clinic.

OBJECTIVES To identify the prevalence and factors associated with psychiatric disorders in Chinese cervical cancer survivors. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted from May 2011 to April 2012 at the specialist gynaecology outpatient clinic at Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital, Hong Kong. All cervical cancer patients who had completed treatment were consecutively recruited. They were interviewed using the Chinese-Bilingual Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders, Patient Research version. Socio-demographic data and clinical information were collected from the patients and their hospital records were reviewed. RESULTS A total of 113 patients were recruited into the study. The point prevalence of psychiatric disorders as a group in cervical cancer survivors was 37%. The point prevalence of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia were 31%, 16%, and 2%, respectively. Major depressive disorder was the most common mood disorder and generalised anxiety disorder the most common anxiety disorder. Younger age, a history of psychiatric illness, fatigue, menopausal symptoms, and pain were independent predictors of current psychiatric disorders. CONCLUSION Psychiatric disorders, predominantly depressive and anxiety disorders, are common in Chinese cervical cancer survivors. Identification of independent predictors can help gynaecologists detect these disorders earlier and arrange appropriate interventions.
Inférence et modèles de données personnelles : mobilité sociale, proximité spatiale. (Inference and models of personal data: social mobility, spatial proximity)

La diffusion massive de dispositifs portables, de plus en plus utilises pour le traitement et la communication de l'information, permet la collecte d'importantes masses de donnees liees a l'activite des utilisateurs sur des applications mobiles. Nous nous interessons aux donnees de localisation (les traces de mobilite) qui sont issues de systemes mobiles formes par un groupe d'utilisateurs. Les donnees de mobilite produites dans un systeme mobile sont etudiees suivant deux axes : - L'utilisation des modeles de mobilite est a la base du developpement d'algorithmes de communication dedies au systemes mobiles. Les donnees de mobilite reelles concernant les utilisateurs vont nous permettre de comparer les donnees de mobilite synthetiques utilisees dans la simulation avec la realite qu'ils sont censes decrire. - La manipulation des donnees de mobilite reelles implique une reflexion sur les consequences que les informations extraites de ces donnees ont relativement a la protection de la vie privee des utilisateurs. Les contributions sur ces deux fronts sont les suivantes : - Une analyse fine des proprietes spatiales et sociales d'un ensemble de traces de mobilite reelles collecte experimentalement a l'aide d'une plateforme a haute precision. - Une comparaison exploratoire entre des traces de mobilite reelles et des traces de mobilite synthetiques generees a partir de sept differents modele de mobilite. - La conception et l'analyse d'un algorithme d'inference par co-localisation decorrelee des informations sur la localisation des utilisateurs cibles. - La quantification du potentiel des donnees de co-localisation non-deterministes sur la perte de protection de la vie privee d'un ensemble d'utilisateurs.
Transparent Probabilistic Packet Marking

: Probabilistic Packet Marking (PPM) is known to be one of the better defense methods against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. However, most of the routers on the Internet are not yet ready for PPM. Before a new router that has the PPM function can be deployed, several challenges such as cost, operation, and availability must ﬁrst be resolved. In this paper, we propose a device for transparent PPM that makes the target router PPM-capable. The device does not change the existing conﬁguration of the router nor do existing routers have to be replaced. We implemented and evaluated our proposed device on Linux with excellent results.
Development and validation of the Wisconsin Smoking Withdrawal Scale.

The accurate assessment of nicotine withdrawal is important theoretically and clinically. A 28-item scale, the Wisconsin Smoking Withdrawal Scale, was developed that contains 7 reliable subscales tapping the major symptom elements of the nicotine withdrawal syndrome. Coefficients alpha for the subscales range from . 75 to . 93. This scale is sensitive to smoking withdrawal, is predictive of smoking cessation outcomes, and yields data that conform to a 7-factor structure. The 7 scales predicted intratreatment smoking, chi2(7, N = 163) = 15.19, p = . 034. Moreover, the questionnaire is sufficiently brief so that it can be used in both clinical and research contexts.
A Negation Handling Technique for Sentiment Analysis

Traditional lexicon-based approaches for sentiment analysis are usually not able to model negation, as they do not provide proper techniques to identify the right negation window. In this work we address the problem of the automatic determination of the scope of negation and we present a negation handling algorithm based on dependency-based parse trees. The proposal is based on the use of grammatical relations among words to model a sentence, and hence to determine words that are affected by negation. The proposed algorithm has been coupled with a semantic disambiguation technique to identify the sentiment of a sentence. Experiments on different datasets have proven that our proposal improves the accuracy of the sentiment analysis. The proposed algorithm has been implemented as part of a Social Information Discovery system, which allows for an integrated near-real-time analysis of discussions from multiple social networks.
Acknowledging the psychiatric cost of war.

The data presented by Hoge and associates in this issue of the Journal 1 about members of the Army and the Marine Corps returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan force us to acknowledge the psychiatric cost of sending young men and women to war. It is possible that these early findings underestimate the eventual magnitude of this clinical problem. The report is unprecedented in several respects. First, this is the first time there has been such an early assessment of the prevalence of war-related psychiatric disorders, reported while the fighting continues. Second, there are predeployment data, .
Construction of a secure wireless power transfer system for robot fish

We have designed a prototype wireless power feeding system to the ornamental robot fish, considering it also as a preliminary experiment for application to the capsule endoscope. We insert a solenoidal resonator instead of the button battery in a robot fish, and send power wirelessly from the resonators which are placed above and below the aquarium. In order to mitigate the high voltage induced in the power transmitting coil due to the low coupling coefficient to the receiving resonator, the effect of operation frequency is studied, resulting in the choice of lower frequency. So as to comply with the EMC problems, electric/magnetic field distributions are measured being compared with ICNIRP recommendation. In addition, we have the real goldfish swim at the same time as the robot fish in the demo experiment for qualitative safety evidence.
A Histopathological Study on Gentamycin Induced Nephrotoxicity in Experimental Albino Rats

Drug-induced nephrotoxicity is an important cause of renal failure. Aminoglycosides throughout the endocytic pathway are taken up into the epithelial cells of the renal proximal tubules and stay there for a long time, which leads to nephrotoxicity. Wistar‐albino male rats weighing 125–150gms, are utilized for the present study.Blood samples were collected with cardiac puncture for biochemical investigations like blood urea, uric acid, creatinine, serum Na, K, Ca, determination.By using one way ANOVA the results are significant at . 001.Tubular epithelial necrosis and dilatation is observed effecting less than half of cortical tubules when rats treated with 60mg/kg b.w. Hyaline cast formation is observed in PCT with atrophic glomeruli effecting half of the cortical regionwhen rats treated with 80mg/kg b.w. gentamicin must be given in the lowest effective therapeutic doses in patients with normal kidney function.
Earliest electrocardiographic evidence of myocardial infarction: implications for thrombolytic treatment. The GREAT Group.

OBJECTIVES--To determine the incidence of the earliest electrocardiographic changes in patients with suspected myocardial infarction and their sensitivity and specificity for predicting the final diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. DESIGN--Retrospective study of paired electrocardiograms recorded at home and on admission to hospital. SETTING--29 rural practices in Grampian and teaching hospitals in Aberdeen. PATIENTS--137 patients participating in the early anistreplase trial in the Grampian region, who received placebo at home and for whom paired electrocardiograms were available. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Classified electrocardiographic abnormalities and diagnosis at discharge. RESULTS--Electrocardiograms were recorded immediately before injection of placebo at home and anistreplase in hospital at median times of 110 and 240 minutes after the onset of symptoms. Definite or probable myocardial infarction was later confirmed in 93 (68%) patients. Of these, 66 (71%) had the same findings on both electrocardiograms of either ST elevation, bundle branch block, or a non-specific abnormality, while 27 (29%) showed a major change of classification between home and hospital recordings; 21 (23%) had ST elevation or bundle branch block on only one of the paired recordings. Although ST elevation was the commonest abnormality in the 93 patients with myocardial infarction, in only 51 was it recorded at home (sensitivity 55%) and in 49 on admission (sensitivity 53%). Of 57 patients with ST elevation at home, six did not have infarction (specificity 86%), while of 51 with ST elevation on admission, two did not have infarction (specificity 95%). CONCLUSIONS--Elevation of the ST segment is a transient electrocardiographic abnormality that has high specificity but low sensitivity for predicting the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction; it is an unsatisfactory precondition for giving thrombolytic treatment to patients with suspected acute myocardial infarction.