Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reliability of oesophageal pH recording for the detection of gastro-oesophageal reflux

Objective. Despite the new gold standard oesophageal impedance monitoring, pH monitoring is still used frequently for detection of gastro-oesophageal reflux (GOR). Besides drops in pH from above to below pH4, drops of ≥1 unit are also used as a marker for GOR. In this study the objective was to investigate the accuracy of drops in pH for detection of GOR, using impedance monitoring as the gold standard. Material and methods. Nineteen GORD patients (9 M, 55±11 years) underwent combined 24-h pH-impedance recording off acid-suppressive therapy. All drops in pH ≥0.5 pH units, with a duration ≥4 s, reaching the nadir pH within 5 s after onset were included. Reflux events detected with impedance monitoring were taken as the reference. Results. In total, 2221 drops in pH were found; 47% were acid (nadir pH <4), 47% weakly acidic (nadir pH between pH7 and 4) and 5% were superimposed (pH drop starting below pH4). The sensitivities of acid, weakly acidic and superimposed pH drops ≥1 were 91%, 28%, 24%, respectively, and the percentages of false-positive reflux episodes were 20, 56 and 54, respectively. Acid reflux with a cut-off ≥0.5 and ≤3.3 had a moderate-to-good sensitivity (94–70%) and low false-positive percentages (23–13%). In contrast, weakly acidic and superimposed reflux showed greater false-positive than true-positive percentages for all cut-off values. Conclusions. Compared to impedance monitoring, detection of reflux with pH monitoring is clearly inferior. When drops in pH ≥1 are used irrespective of nadir pH as an indicator of reflux episodes, the number of reflux episodes is overestimated. Decreases from above to below 4 with cut-offs between ≥0.5 and ≤3.3 are the most indicative of true reflux episodes.
Androgen Treatment of Depressive Symptoms in Older Men: A Systematic Review of Feasibility and Effectiveness

Objective: To determine the feasibility and effectiveness of androgen treatment of depressive symptoms in older men. Method: We searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Eric, HealthStar, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for potentially relevant articles. The bibliographies of relevant articles were searched for additional references and experts were consulted. Seventeen reports (8 open and 12 randomized trials; 3 articles reported studies of 2 designs) met the following inclusion criteria: original investigation; published in English or French, use of acknowledged criteria or scale for depression, and open or randomized trial of androgen treatment. Four criteria assessed study validity: randomization, double blinding, comparability of treatment and control groups at baseline, and description of dropouts. We abstracted, tabulated, and compared information from each article. Results: Most studies had methodological limitations. With regard to feasibility, there were few reported withdrawals due to adverse events. With regard to effectiveness, 6 of 8 open trials had positive results, and 5 of 12 randomized trials had positive results, although 1 was equivocal. However, testosterone was combined with antidepressant medication in 3 of these positive randomized trials. Only 2 open trials enrolled subjects whose mean age was 60 years or over. One had positive results, and the other had negative results. Conclusion: Androgen therapy may be feasible in the short term, but there is little evidence that it is an effective treatment for depressive symptoms in older men.
Asystole during pulmonary artery catheter sheath removal: a rare occurance.

230 Annals of Cardiac Anaesthesia  Vol. 16:3  Jul-Sep-2013 6 min. Cardiological evaluation revealed an EF 25% and normal plasma digoxin and cardiac biomarker levels. She was electively ventilated and mild hypothermia was initiated. Magnetic resonance imaging brain ruled out hypoxic damage. After stabilization of the patient, the sheath was removed carefully by enlarging its entry point under local anesthesia and ultrasound guidance keeping the resuscitation kit ready. Once the patient became conscious and oriented, the ventilatory support was gradually tapered off and the patient was extubated. The echocardiography examination showed an EF 40-45%. Subsequently the patient was discharged from ICU.
An Analysis of the Influence of dispersion of Valuations on Financial Markets through Agent-Based Modeling

This research analyzes the influence of dispersion of valuations on financial markets, taking several aspects of real financial market into consideration (such as financial constraints, investment strategies and so on). As a result of intensive experiments in the market, we made the following findings: (1) Dispersion of fundamentalists' valuations has little effect on the market when financial constraints are absent; (2) When financial constraints — such as short-sale constraints — are introduced, certain situations arise in which deviations from fundamental values become larger, according to the level of the dispersion of valuations; (3) A passive investment strategy, as is consistent with traditional financial theory, is valid even when the introduction of financial constraints causes market prices to deviate significantly from fundamental values. These results contribute to clarifying the mechanism of price fluctuations in financial markets and are notable from both academic and practical view points.
Nail-mounted tactile display for boundary/texture augmentation

We developed a device that can superimpose tactile information onto an object displayed on a computer monitor. With this device, we can present tactile sensations of boundaries or textures corresponding to the visual image. The device is composed of a small voice coil, and the tactile sensations are generated by controlling the modulation of the waveforms. For demonstration proposes, the device is integrated with a tool that allows users to draw a picture easily with their fingertips while experiencing tactile feedback.
Leaving the Ivory Tower

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Image abstraction painting of flow-like stylization

Original scientific paper This paper presents a non-photorealistic rendering technique for producing flow-like abstraction stylization from a photograph. Based on anisotropic Kuwahara filtering in conjunction with line integral convolution, our method abstracts shapes and colors simultaneously while preserving features of images. In particular, we develop an edge detection and dilation method, to draw attention to salient features and image boundaries. This proposed algorithm is incremental and iterative, and therefore the degree of flow and abstraction can be controlled. Experimental results demonstrate that the effectiveness of our method in producing a coherent and flow-like abstraction stylization is satisfactory yet preserving features and directions from photographs.
EE 267 Proposal : Virtual Occlusions in Video See-Through Immersive Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) allows the viewer to interact with the world at large in new and exciting ways, using the backdrop of reality as a canvas. With advances in modern computing technology, it is now possible to construct immersive augmented reality devices with very small constituent parts. In an effort to improve realism when viewing augmented scenes, it is possible to combine the depth maps of the virtual scene with that of reality captured using a depth camera in order to introduce occlusions between virtual and real objects. The scene with occlusions can then be rendered onto a display, facilitating see-through video augmented reality.
Urinary Biomarkers for Prostate Cancer.

BACKGROUND Urine may represent a convenient source of biomarkers for the early detection of Prostate Cancer (PCa) since it contains secreted prostatic products and exfoliated tumor cells. Furthermore, urine is easy to collect with non-invasive procedures which are repeatable. METHOD Several urinary biomarkers for PCa have been proposed in the past but only one (PCA3) has been approved for clinical use and even this is not widely utilized in the routine practice. Most of these, particularly the proteins, were abandoned due to lack of confirmation. DNA markers have been proposed but they are less suitable compared to other malignancies, such as bladder cancer due to the limited amount of DNA somatic alterations in PCa compared to gene fusions and pathway activations. CONCLUSION RNA biomarkers are still the most promising and particularly miRNA and AMACR mRNA but the main weaknesses that prevented the full clinical implementation are the absence of a validated of the cut-off levels and the identification of consistent reference standards.
Immune Responses against a Single CD8+-T-Cell Epitope Induced by Virus Vector Vaccination Can Successfully Control Trypanosoma cruzi Infection

ABSTRACT In order to develop CD8+-T-cell-mediated immunotherapy against intracellular infectious agents, vaccination using recombinant virus vectors has become a promising strategy. In this study, we generated recombinant adenoviral and vaccinia virus vectors expressing a single CD8+-T-cell epitope, ANYNFTLV, which is derived from a Trypanosoma cruzi antigen. Immunogenicity of these two recombinant virus vectors was confirmed by the detection of ANYNFTLV-specific CD8+ T cells in the spleens of immunized mice. Priming/boosting immunization using combinations of these two recombinant virus vectors revealed that the adenovirus vector was efficient for priming and the vaccinia virus vector was effective for boosting the CD8+-T-cell responses. Moreover, we also demonstrated that the ANYNFTLV-specific CD8+-T-cell responses were further augmented by coadministration of recombinant vaccinia virus vector expressing the receptor activator of NFκB (RANK) ligand as an adjuvant. By priming with the adenovirus vector expressing ANYNFTLV and boosting with the vaccinia virus vectors expressing ANYNFTLV and RANK ligand, the immunized mice were efficiently protected from subsequent challenge with lethal doses of T. cruzi. These results indicated, for the first time, that the induction of immune responses against a single CD8+-T-cell epitope derived from an intrinsic T. cruzi antigen was sufficient to control lethal T. cruzi infection.
Tiefencharakterisierung des intestinalen Transkriptoms der Maus mittels RNA-Seq

Die Schleimhaut des Darmtraktes ist charakterisiert durch komplexe metabolische und immunologische Prozesse und wird gesteuert durch hochdynamische Genexpressions-Programme. Mit der Verfugbarkeit von next generation sequencing und ihrer Nutzbarkeit fur die Analyse von RNA-Sequenzen wurde die Genauigkeit uber die globale Architektur des Transkriptoms gegenuber anderen Methoden wie microarrays auf eine neue Ebene befordert. Basierend auf dem 3‘ Oligo-dT priming von polyadenylierten Boten-RNA gefolgt von reverser Transkription und einem sogenannten template switch wurde eine Methode fur RNA-Seq auf der Life Technologies SOLiD Plattform etabliert. Dieser Ansatz zeigte zuverlassige Informationen uber das untersuchte Gewebe, z. B. in Bezug auf Genexpression und der Beobachtung von nicht-annotierten, transkriptionell aktiven Bereichen im Genom. In dieser Arbeit wird uber die Tiefencharakterisierung des polyadenylierten Transkriptoms in zwei nah verwandten, dennoch unterschiedlichen Geweben des murinen Intestinaltrakts (Dunn- und Dickdarm) berichtet. Eine gewebespezifische Architektur des Transkriptoms und die Prasenz von zuvor nicht bekannten Bereichen transkriptioneller Aktivitat wurden gefunden. Im ersten Schritt wurden Signaturen von 20.541 NCBI-RefSeq-Transkripten im Darm identifiziert (74,1 % der annotierten Gene), davon fanden sich 16.742 in beiden untersuchten Geweben. Obwohl die Mehrheit der Sequenzen annotierten Genen zugeordnet werden konnten, fanden sich 27.543 nicht-annotierte, transkriptionell aktive Regionen im Genom im Widerspruch zur aktuellen Genannotationen von RefSeq oder Ensembl. Unter Nutzung eines zweiten, unabhangigen, strangspezifischen Protokolls konnten 20.966 dieser Befunde bestatigt werden, die Mehrheit davon in direkter Nahe zu bekannten Genen. In der Folge wurden die Befunde bezuglich ihrer Nahe zu beschriebenen Exon-Elementen kategorisiert. Regionale Unterschiede zwischen Dunn- und Dickdarm dieser transkriptionell-aktiven, aber nicht annotierten Elemente wurden untersucht. Die vorliegende Arbeit demonstriert die Komplexitat eines typischen intestinalen mRNA-Transkriptoms von Saugetieren anhand einer strangspezifischen Auflosung bis hin zur Einzelbase. Die Analysen zeigten zum ersten Mal ein strangspezifisches Bild von nicht-annotierten, transkriptionell aktiven Bereichen in zwei Geweben und reprasentieren eine Ressource fur weitere Untersuchungen transkriptioneller Prozesse, welche zur molekularen Gewebeidentitat beitragen. Die mittels RNA-Seq in dieser Arbeit erhobenen Daten waren von hoher, zuvor nicht zuganglicher Qualitat, so dass RNA-Seq in der Zukunft vermutlich die neue Standardmethode fur die genomweite Untersuchung des Transkriptoms darstellen wird.
Ramsey Properties of Random Graphs and Folkman Numbers

Abstract For two graphs, G and F, and an integer r ≥ 2 we write G → (F)r if every r-coloring of the edges of G results in a monochromatic copy of F. In 1995, the first two authors established a threshold edge probability for the Ramsey property G(n, p) → (F)r, where G(n, p) is a random graph obtained by including each edge of the complete graph on n vertices, independently, with probability p. The original proof was based on the regularity lemma of Szemerédi and this led to tower-type dependencies between the involved parameters. Here, for r = 2, we provide a self-contained proof of a quantitative version of the Ramsey threshold theorem with only double exponential dependencies between the constants. As a corollary we obtain a double exponential upper bound on the 2-color Folkman numbers. By a different proof technique, a similar result was obtained independently by Conlon and Gowers.
Heritability of Some Important Parameters of the Antioxidant Defense System Like Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase, Catalase, Glutathione Peroxidase and Lipid Peroxidation in Red Blood Cells by Twin Study

Abstract Data on the important parameters of antioxidant defense system like glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), catalase, glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX) and lipid peroxidation (lpx) from 7 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) and 7 pairs of dizygotic (DZ) like-sexed male twin pairs were subjected to variance analysis to examine genetic significance of those biochemical traits. The results of variance analysis and F test show the involvement of significant component of genetic variability in case of G6PD and catalase. The estimates of heritability based on variances of MZ and DZ twins are 0.93 (G6PD), 0.72 (catalase), 0.60 (GSH-PX) and 0.50 (lipid peroxidation).
Distributed Software-Attestation Defense against Sensor Worm Propagation

Wireless sensor networks are vulnerable to sensor worm attacks in which the attacker compromises a few nodes and makes these compromised nodes initiate worm spread over the network, targeting the worm infection of the whole nodes in the network. Several defense mechanisms have been proposed to prevent worm propagation in wireless sensor networks. Although these proposed schemes use software diversity technique for worm propagation prevention under the belief that different software versions do not have common vulnerability, they have fundamental drawback in which it is difficult to realize the aforementioned belief in sensor motes. To resolve this problem, we propose on-demand software-attestation based scheme to defend against worm propagation in sensor network. The main idea of our proposed scheme is to perform software attestations against sensor nodes in on-demand manner and detect the infected nodes by worm, resulting in worm propagation block in the network. Through analysis, we show that our proposed scheme defends against worm propagation in efficient and robust manner. Through simulation, we demonstrate that our proposed scheme stops worm propagation at the reasonable overhead while preventing a majority of sensor nodes from being infected by worm.
Effectiveness of a Mobile Educational Learning Using a QRBased U-Learning for Personalized Tutoring

The main aim of the project is to propose a QR-based U-Learning Material Production System (QR-ULMPS) to develop context-aware u-learning environment during outdoor learning activities. As portability and mobility are necessary factors for an authentic outdoor learning experience, our QR-ULMPS needed to incorporate versatile mobile devices. With the help of word net tool and natural language processing technique, synonyms and antonyms are being generated for the difficult words in context aware u-learning materials. We can tag images, videos and audios for the content to reduce the technical barrier for the u-learning student’s. The application of QR code technology not only support students in accessing online information materials via mobile devices, but also fulfilled all of the context-aware ulearning environment needs of teachers using the system. Issues are resolved by QRULMPS during conventional outdoor teaching approaches, which are often very time-consuming and labor intensive.
Cuestionamientos, características y miradas de la interculturalidad

El presente articulo propone un recorrido por tres aspectos importantes de la comunicacion intercultural. En primer lugar, se plantea como la interculturalidad nos obliga a repensar temas como el de las identidades culturales o el del pensamiento cientifico. En segundo lugar se establecen los elementos y obstaculos de la comunicacion intercultural. Por ultimo se propone una mirada intercultural que nos aproximara a la realidad de una forma distinta
The turkey erythrocyte fl . adrenergic receptor couples to both adenylate cyclase and phospholipase C via distinct G-protein a subunits

By contrast with mammalian ,-adrenergic receptors, the avian isoform elicits two distinct effector responses, activation of adenylate cyclase and polyphosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C (PLC) leading to the accumulation of both cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cyclic AMP) and inositol phosphates. We have investigated the mechanisms of fi-adrenergic receptor signalling in turkey erythrocytes. Stimulation of adenylate cyclase by the f,-adrenergic-receptor agonist isoprenaline exhibits a 30-fold lower EC50 than that for PLC activation, which may indicate a marked receptor reserve for the former effector. Similar K1 values were obtained for the inhibition of both responses by four 8-adrenergic antagonists, arguing that a
Omgaan met de kloof tussen een strikt eentalig taalbeleid en een taaldiverse klaspraktijk: strategieën van leerkrachten en leerlingen

Vlaanderen wordt in toenemende mate gekenmerkt door zowel intraals interlinguale diversiteit, met aan de ene kant de opkomst van tussentaal als een cluster van intermediaire varieteiten tussen de dialecten en het Standaardnederlands, en anderzijds een groeiend aantal immigranten en (dus) anderstaligen. De effecten van beide fenomenen op de positie van de standaardtaal in Vlaanderen worden door taalkundigen op diverse manieren ingeschat: terwijl sommigen processen van destandaardisering menen te kunnen aanwijzen (bv. Grondelaers & van Hout 2011), spreken anderen veeleer van demotisering (bv. Delarue 2013), en hebben nog anderen het net over een proces van hyperstandaardisering (bv. Van Hoof & Jaspers 2012). Het Vlaamse onderwijstaalbeleid (bv. Vandenbroucke 2007, Smet 2011) lijkt vooral een afgeleide van dat laatste te zijn: de (gepercipieerde) problemen van substandaardisering en meertaligheid worden er aangepakt door een strikt eentalig beleid, waarbij het Standaardnederlands als de enige aanvaardbare taalvarieteit wordt gepropageerd (Delarue & De Caluwe 2015), een duidelijke uiting van een sterke en vitale standaardtaalideologie (STI). In de meeste Vlaamse klaslokalen is er echter heel wat tussentaal te horen, zowel bij leerkrachten als bij leerlingen (Delarue 2013), waardoor er een spanningsveld ontstaat tussen de dagelijkse klaspraktijk en het ideaalbeeld dat door beleidsmakers wordt geschetst.
Performance Analysis of Task Scheduling Heuristics in Grid

Reduction in makespan is one of the fundamental objectives of optimizing task scheduling problems in distributed heterogeneous computing systems. In this paper, we present a performance based comparative analysis among different scheduling heuristics for independent task scheduling in Grid. Several existing heuristics were simulated and existing Sufferage algorithm was improved by introduction of Quality of Service (QoS) parameter. Experimental results reveal that there exist certain circumstances where one scheduling technique can outperform others. It is also observed that the Sufferage with QoS does perform well as compared with other heuristics.
Limiting Distributions for Multitype Branching Processes

In this article, the asymptotic behavior of multitype Markov branching processes with discrete or continuous time is investigated in the positive regular and nonsingular case when both the initial number of ancestors and the time tend to infinity. Some limiting distributions are obtained as well as multivariate asymptotic normality is proved. The article also considers the relative frequencies of distinct types of individuals motivated by applications in the field of cell biology. We obtained non-random limits for the frequencies and multivariate asymptotic normality when the initial number of ancestors is large and the time of observation increases to infinity. In fact this paper continues the investigations of Yakovlev and Yanev [32] where the time was fixed. The new obtained limiting results are of special interest for cell kinetics studies where the relative frequencies but not the absolute cell counts are accessible to measurement.
Practical Inner Codes for Batched Sparse Codes

Batched sparse (BATS) code is a promising technology for reliable end-to-end transmission in multi-hop wireless networks. One main research topic for BATS code is how to design an optimal inner code that is typically random linear network code. In this paper, this issue is focus on the number of transmissions from an end-to-end perspective. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem with the objective of minimizing the total number of transmissions from source to destination. Subsequently, the inherent properties of inner codes are exploited to relax the integer restrictions by the means of the regularized incomplete beta function. As a result, a new nonlinear programming (NLP) problem is constructed. Solving the NLP problem provides a valid lower bound on the optimal solution, and, hence, is used as the performance measure for our heuristic. Furthermore, a centralized approximation approach is developed to solve our MINLP problem efficiently. The numerical results demonstrate that all solutions developed in the paper are near-optimal with a guaranteed performance bound.