Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prospective comparison of mammography, sonography, and MRI in patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy for palpable breast cancer.

OBJECTIVE The objective of our study was to determine the relative accuracy of mammography, sonography, and MRI in predicting residual tumor after neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer as compared with the gold standards of physical examination and pathology. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Forty-one women with stage IIB-III palpable breast cancer were prospectively enrolled in a study investigating the effects of sequential single-agent chemotherapy (doxorubicin followed by paclitaxel or vice versa) on tumor imaging. The study cohort consisted of the first 31 patients (age range, 31-65 years; mean, 45 years) who completed the protocol. All underwent physical examination, mammography, sonography, and MRI before and after receiving each neoadjuvant chemotherapeutic drug. Imaging studies were reviewed by two radiologists using conventional lexicons for lesion analysis, and the findings were compared with clinical response and pathology results. RESULTS Complete, partial, and stable clinical response as defined by clinical examination was seen in 15, 14, and two of the 31 patients, respectively. Agreement rates about the degree of response were 32%, 48%, and 55%, respectively, for mammography, sonography, and MRI compared with clinical evaluation and did not differ statistically. Agreement about the rate of response as measured by clinical examination, mammography, sonography, and MRI compared with the gold standard (pathology) was 19%, 26%, 35%, and 71%, respectively. Of the four, MRI agreed with the gold standard significantly more often (p < 0.002 for all three paired comparisons with MRI). When there was disagreement with the gold standard, none of the four exhibited a significant tendency to either under- or overestimate. CONCLUSION MRI appears to provide the best correlation with pathology-better than physical examination, mammography, and sonography-in patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy. However, MRI may overestimate (6%) or underestimate (23%) residual disease in approximately 29% of the patients (95% confidence interval, 14-48%).
Performance of Fully Recessed AlGaN/GaN MOSFET Prepared on GaN Buffer Layer Grown With AlSiC Precoverage on Silicon Substrate

A crack-free AlGaN/GaN heterostrucure is grown on 4-in Si (111) substrate with AlSiC precoverage layer. Covering the Si surface with the AlSiC layer, until the growth of the AlN wetting buffer layer, is found to be effective in compensating the strong tensile stress in the GaN layer grown on Si substrate. The metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, fabricated on this AlGaN/GaN heterostructure, exhibits excellent normally-off characteristics with threshold voltage of 7.2 V, maximum drain current of 120 mA/mm, ON/OFF current ratio of ~ 108, and subthreshold slope of 80 mV/decade.
Effect of basal ganglia injury on central dopamine activity in Gulf War syndrome: correlation of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy and plasma homovanillic acid levels.

BACKGROUND Many complaints of Gulf War veterans are compatible with a neurologic illness involving the basal ganglia. METHODS In 12 veterans with Haley Gulf War syndrome 2 and in 15 healthy control veterans of similar age, sex, and educational level, we assessed functioning neuronal mass in both basal ganglia by measuring the ratio of N-acetyl-aspartate to creatine with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Central dopamine activity was assessed by measuring the ratio of plasma homovanillic acid (HVA) and 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenlyglycol (MHPG). RESULTS The logarithm of the age-standardized HVA/MHPG ratio was inversely associated with functioning neuronal mass in the left basal ganglia (R(2) = 0.56; F(1,27) = 33.82; P<. 001) but not with that in the right (R(2) = 0. 04; F(1,26) = 1.09; P =. 30). Controlling for age, renal clearances of creatinine and weak organic anions, handedness, and smoking did not substantially alter the associations. CONCLUSIONS The reduction in functioning neuronal mass in the left basal ganglia of these veterans with Gulf War syndrome seems to have altered central dopamine production in a lateralized pattern. This finding supports the theory that Gulf War syndrome is a neurologic illness, in part related to injury to dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia.
Package Dependencies Analysis and Remediation in Object-Oriented Systems. (Analyse et remédiation des dépendances entre paquetages dans les systèmes orientés objet)

Software evolves over time with the modification, addition and removal of new classes, methods, functions, dependencies. A consequence is that behavior may not be placed in the right packages and the software modularization is broken. A good organization of classes into identifiable and collaborating packages eases the understanding, maintenance, test and evolution of software systems. We argue that maintainers lack tool support for understanding the concrete organization and for structuring packages within their context. Our claim is that the maintenance of large software modularizations needs approaches that help (i) understanding the structure at package level and assessing its quality; (ii) identifying modularity problems; and (iii) take decisions and verify the impact of these decisions. In this thesis, we propose ECOO, an approach to help reengineers identify and understand structural problems in software architectures and to support the remodularization activity. It concerns the three following research fields: - Understanding package dependency problems. We propose visualizations to highlight cyclic dependencies problems at package level. - Proposing dependencies to be changed for remodularization. The approach proposes dependencies to break to make the system more modular. - Analyzing impact of change. The approach proposes a change impact analysis to try modifications before applying them on the real system. The approaches presented in this thesis have been qualitatively and quantitatively validated and results have been taken into account in the reengineering of analyzed systems. The results we obtained demonstrate the usefulness of our approach.
Accent Identification by Clustering and Scoring Formants

There have been significant improvements in automatic voice recognition technology. However, existing systems still face difficulties, particularly when used by non-native speakers with accents. In this paper we address a problem of identifying the English accented speech of speakers from different backgrounds. Once an accent is identified the speech recognition software can utilise training set from appropriate accent and therefore improve the efficiency and accuracy of the speech recognition system. We introduced the Q factor, which is defined by the sum of relationships between frequencies of the formants. Four different accents were considered and experimented for this research. A scoring method was introduced in order to effectively analyse accents. The proposed concept indicates that the accent could be identified by analysing their formants. Keywords—Accent Identification, Formants, Q Factor.
Human activity recognition based on transformed accelerometer data from a mobile phone

Mobile phones are equipped with a rich set of sensors, such as accelerometers, magnetometers, gyroscopes, photometers, orientation sensors, and gravity sensors. These sensors can be used for human activity recognition in the ubiquitous computing domain. Most of reported studies consider acceleration signals that are collected from a known fixed device location and orientation. This paper describes how more accurate results of basic activity recognition can be achieved with transformed accelerometer data. Based on the rotation matrix (Euler Angle Conversion) derived from the orientation angles of gyroscopes and orientation sensors, we transform input signals into a reference coordinate system. The advantage of the transformation is that it allows activity classification and recognition to be carried out independent of the orientation of sensors. We consider five user activities: staying, walking, running, ascending stairs, and descending stairs, with a phone being placed in the subject's hand, or in pants pocket, or in a handbag. The results show that an overall orientation independent accuracy of 84.77% is achieved, which is a improvement of 17.26% over those classifications without input transformation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Potent Pre-Medication in Periodontal Surgical Procedures - Ketorolac Tromethamine 10mg: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Oral ketorolac tromethamine (KT) in 10 and 20mg postoperative doses in an oral surgery pain model have proven to be equally analgesic as 400mg ibuprofen, and significantly better than acetaminophen and acetaminophen-codeine combinations. It prevents pain by blocking arachidonic-acid pathway. To evaluate the analgesic effect of preoperative KT-10mg, on pain during and after open flap debridement (OFD) surgery. 42-patients were randomized (21-controls, 21-tests). Oral KT-10mg was given to test-group 10 minutes before administration of the local-anesthesia (L.A), prior to OFD. Visual analogue scale (VAS) was used to assess pain, immediately after OFD, and every hour after that until, first onset of pain, & time of onset of pain. The mean values of time of onset of pain in test-group was 3.57 hours, while it was 2.33 hours in the control-group (p=0.005). KT-10mg pre-medication was effective in pain reduction during surgery. However, it neither affected delayed pain levels, nor postoperative analgesic consumption.
Critical Criteria for Successful Synchronization of Line-Start IPM Motors

In this paper, the critical criteria for successful synchronization of line-start interior permanent magnet (IPM) motors are studied for different loading conditions. An approximate solution technique based on average torque analysis is developed for determining the critical slip and the critical inertia of a line-start IPM motor for steady state and dynamic high inertial loads. Transient analysis of a 1-hp three-phase four-pole line-start IPM motor is conducted to determine the accuracy of the proposed criteria. Experimental investigations are carried out for the same 1-hp laboratory IPM motor. Analytical, simulation, and test results are presented. There is close agreement between analytical, simulation, and experimental results, which validates the accuracy of the proposed criteria.
Effects of pentagastrin on intestinal absorption and blood flow in the anaesthetized dog.

1. Pentagastrin (1, 10 micrograms/min) was infused I.V. into fed and fasted anaesthetized dogs and the intestinal absorption of NaCl and H2O and blood flow were determined. The influence of pentagastrin‐induced cardiovascular changes on absorption was investigated. 2. 22Na and 3H2O were used to determine the unidirectional Na and H2O fluxes from saline perfused through the ileal lumen and the clearances of 3H2O were used to calculate total and absorptive site blood flow. 3. Ileal absorption of Na and H2O was reduced by 10 micrograms/min pentagastrin due primarily to significant increases in the secretory flux of Na and decreases in the absorptive flux of H2O in both fed and fasted animals. 4. Neither total intestinal blood flow, arterial nor mesenteric vein pressure were changed by pentagastrin but absorptive site blood flow was decreased in fasted but not in fed dogs. 5. Pretreatment with atropine reduced the effects of pentagastrin but pretreatment with guanethidine potentiated the effects of pentagastrin. 6. Absorptive site blood flow was positively linearly correlated with the absorptive fluxes of both Na and H2O. The relationships between the secretory fluxes of Na and H2O and estimated capillary pressure were changed from a positive relationship in control periods to a less positive or negative relationship following pentagastrin. 7. It was concluded that pentagastrin reduces intestinal absorption through both a cardiovascular effect and an effect on the intestinal epithelium. Also, there is a strong autonomic component in the effects of pentagastrin on intestinal absorption.
University of Groningen Alternative Mechanisms for the Interaction of the Cell-Penetrating Peptides Penetratin and the TAT Peptide with Lipid Bilayers Yesylevskyy,

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) have recently attracted much interest due to their apparent ability to penetrate cell membranes in an energy-independent manner. Here molecular-dynamics simulation techniques were used to study the interaction of two CPPs: penetratin and the TAT peptide with 1,2-Dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) and 1,2-dioleoyl-snglycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) phospolipid bilayers shed light on alternative mechanisms by which these peptides might cross biological membranes. In contrast to previous simulation studies of charged peptides interacting with lipid bilayers, no spontaneous formation of transmembrane pores was observed. Instead, the simulations suggest that the peptides may enter the cell by micropinocytosis, whereby the peptides induce curvature in the membrane, ultimately leading to the formation of small vesicles within the cell that encapsulate the peptides. Specifically, multiple peptides were observed to induce large deformations in the lipid bilayer that persisted throughout the timescale of the simulations (hundreds of nanoseconds). Pore formation could be induced in simulations in which an external potential was used to pull a single penetratin or TAT peptide into the membrane. With the use of umbrella-sampling techniques, the free energy of inserting a single penetratin peptide into a DPPC bilayer was estimated to be ~75 kJmol , which suggests that the spontaneous penetration of single peptides would require a timescale of at least seconds to minutes. This work also illustrates the extent to which the results of such simulations can depend on the initial conditions, the extent of equilibration, the size of the system, and the conditions under which the simulations are performed. The implications of this with respect to the current systems and to simulations of membrane-peptide interactions in general are discussed.
Microorganisms causing post-harvest tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) fruit decay in Nigeria

This study was carried out to isolate and identify pathogenic microorganisms associated with deterioration of tomato fruits. Fruit samples of infected and non-infected tomatoes were collected from two open markets, Oja-Oba and Sabo in Osogbo, Nigeria. Each of the tomato was cut and the liquid content inoculated on nutrient agar and potato dextrose agar, incubated at 37 0C and 25 0C, respectively, and observed from 24 hours to 5 days, after which different colonies obtained were identified using slide culture technique. Two bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus spp, as well as two fungi Aspergillus flavus and Rhizopus stolonifer were observed in the tomato samples in both markets. Prevalence indices revealed that isolated pathogens is higher at Sabo market than Oja-Oba market. Pathogenicity tests also revealed that both of bacteria and fungi caused fruit decay. Consumers’ awareness on potential health hazards of consuming relatively cheaper and pathogen contaminated spoilt fruits should be intensified.
Beyond usability: process, outcome and affect in human-computer interactions

The present paper reviews the general usability framework that has dominated discussion in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) and finds it wanting. An alternative view of the important determinants of user experience of interactive devices is presented with examples. Systematizing Interaction Evaluation Evaluations of information technology for human use may take many forms, from consumer reactions to screens (on a small scale) to studies of widespread adoption of technology (on a large scale). The classic human-computer interaction (HCI) approach to evaluation has focused on usability and this term is become routinely used to describe a quality of information technology that must be taken seriously in design. Most new applications are tested for usability at some stage in their design and it is common for usability to be trumpeted in marketing campaigns and advertising as a distinguishing index of product quality. While such prominence represents a victory for the usercentered design movement, it is clear that usability alone, at least as it is currently conceived, is insufficient for ensuring high quality user experiences with a new technology. Usability defined Historically, usability (of an application) has moved from a concern with features of an interface to address aspects of the interaction expressed in terms of human action. While multiple definitions still exist, the nearest to an agreed standard is the ISO 9241-derived definition of usability as the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve specified goals in particular environments.
Efficient Hardware Implementations of Binary-to-BCD Conversion Schemes for Decimal Multiplication

This paper proposes two high performance binary-to-binary coded decimal (BCD) conversion algorithms for use in BCD multiplication. These algorithms are based on splitting the 7-bit binary partial product of two BCD digits into two groups, computing the contribution of each group to the equivalent BCD partial product, and adding these contributions to compute the final BCD partial product. Designs for the proposed architectures and their implementations targeting both ASIC and FPGA are compared with others. Implementations of BCD array multipliers using both our conversion circuits and existing conversion circuits have been performed. The synthesis results for both ASIC and FPGA show that the proposed designs are faster and occupying less area than the state-of-the-art conversion circuits. Furthermore, the results obtained from comparing BCD multipliers of various sizes show that the enhancement in the area of the conversion circuit grows into a sizable area improvement in the multiplier circuit.
The Initiation, Adoption, and Implementation of Telecommunications Technologies in U.S. Organizations

Despite the increasing pervasiveness of telecommunications technologies, very few studies have holistically attempted to examine their use in organizational contexts. This study approaches the use of these technologies from an innovation perspective. Literature on innovation is synthesized into a testable model and the results of a senior IS executive survey of 154 organizations is reported. Factors that enable initiation, adoption, and implementation of a set of 15 distinct telecommunications technologies are examined. Two factors in particular, environmental uncertainty and decentralization of decision making, show significant relationships with the usage of these technologies. The results provide useful insights into the usage of individual technologies and the contextual factors that enable diffusion of this important set of technologies in U.S. organizations.
Nucleosome-mediated disruption of transcription factor-chromatin initiation complexes at the mouse mammary tumor virus long terminal repeat in vivo

Glucocorticoid induction of mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) is short lived, returning to base levels within 24 h despite the continued presence of hormone. MMTV DNA sequences assembled as chromatin require hormone for binding by nuclear factor 1 (NF1) and octamer proteins (OCT). However, in the same cells, NF1 and OCT factors are bound to transiently introduced DNA in the absence of hormone. In contrast, recruitment of the TATA-binding protein and a novel DNA-binding protein, which we have designated FDT, for factor downstream of the TATA-binding protein, is hormone dependent for both stable and transient templates. Furthermore, transient DNA templates, but not nucleosomal templates, retain these transcription factors over the course of 24 h. This finding suggests that MMTV chromatin structure contributes to activation and cessation of transcription in vivo.
Recent Developments in Speech Motor Research into Stuttering

This paper discusses recent speech motor research into stuttering within the framework of a speech production model. There seems to be no support for the claim that stutterers differ from nonstutterers in assembling motor plans for speech. However, physiological data suggest that stutterers may at least have different ways of initiating and controlling speech movements. It is hypothesized that stuttering may be the result of a deficiency in speech motor skill. Furthermore, objections to the use of stuttering frequency as a severity index are formulated and future developments in the assessment of speech motor behavior in stuttering are described.
Subcellular localization of host and viral proteins associated with tobamovirus RNA replication

Arabidopsis TOM1 (AtTOM1) and TOM2A (AtTOM2A) are integral membrane proteins genetically identified to be necessary for efficient intracellular multiplication of tobamoviruses. AtTOM1 interacts with the helicase domain polypeptide of tobamovirus‐encoded replication proteins and with AtTOM2A, suggesting that both AtTOM1 and AtTOM2A are integral components of the tobamovirus replication complex. We show here that AtTOM1 and AtTOM2A proteins tagged with green fluorescent protein (GFP) are targeted to the vacuolar membrane (tonoplast)‐like structures in plant cells. In subcellular fractionation analyses, GFP–AtTOM2A, AtTOM2A and its tobacco homolog NtTOM2A were predominantly fractionated to low‐density tonoplast‐rich fractions, whereas AtTOM1–GFP, AtTOM1 and its tobacco homolog NtTOM1 were distributed mainly into the tonoplast‐rich fractions and partially into higher‐buoyant‐density fractions containing membranes from several other organelles. The tobamovirus‐encoded replication proteins were co‐fractionated with both NtTOM1 and viral RNA‐dependent RNA polymerase activity. The replication proteins were also found in the fractions containing non‐membrane‐bound proteins, but neither NtTOM1 nor the polymerase activity was detected there. These observations suggest that the formation of tobamoviral RNA replication complex occurs on TOM1‐containing membranes and is facilitated by TOM2A.
Chromosome 12‐containing markers, including two dicentrics, in three i(12p)‐negative testicular germ cell tumors

A chromosome 12‐derived marker was seen in each of 3 testicular germ cell tumors that lacked the i(12p). An interesting feature of 2 of the markers was that the major part, including the centromere, of an acrocentric (a #13 and #14, respectively) was translocated onto 12p, resulting in a dicentric. In the third tumor, 13q (translocated onto 12q) was again probably involved in the rearrangement. The findings support the view that the amplification of genes on 12p represents a significant step in the development of germ cell tumors. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Psychiatric Symptoms Associated with Scleroderma

Background: The prevalence of psychiatric symptoms and hostility factors in patients with scleroderma, although a matter of clinical interest, it is rather poorly studied. Methods: Thirty female patients with scleroderma were investigated. Thirty-three healthy women were used as a comparison group. The applied psychometric instruments were the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ), the Delusions Symptoms States Inventory/states of Anxiety and Depression (DSSI/sAD) and the Symptom Check List-90R (SCL-90R). Results: The scleroderma patients reported significantly increased depression and anxiety, somatization, interpersonal sensitivity and obsessive-compulsiveness. Paranoid ideation and psychotic symptoms scores were also increased. On hostility, they presented significantly higher scores predominantly on guilt. Conclusions: Psychiatric symptomatology in the form of anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsiveness, somatization and feelings of guilt were reported by the majority of the patients with scleroderma.