Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phase I Study of Induction Chemotherapy and Concomitant Chemoradiotherapy with Irinotecan, Carboplatin, and Paclitaxel for Stage III Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD), dose limiting toxicities (DLTs), and determine the phase II dose for the combination of irinotecan-carboplatin-paclitaxel given as induction chemotherapy and with concomitant chest radiotherapy for patients with Stage III non-small cell lung cancer. Methods: Patients with Cancer and Leukemia Group B performance status of 0 to 2, stage IIIA and IIIB NSCLC patients with resectable or unresectable disease were treated with induction chemotherapy (irinotecan 100 mg/m2, carboplatin AUC 5, and paclitaxel 175 mg/m2 days 1 and 22) followed by concomitant chemotherapy (irinotecan, carboplatin, and paclitaxel) and chest radiotherapy (66 Gy for unresectable and 50 Gy for resectable disease) beginning on week 7. The primary objective was to escalate the dose of irinotecan during chemoradiation in sequential cohorts to determine the DLT and MTD of the regimen. Results: Thirty-eight patients were enrolled (median age 63 years, 57% male, 41% performance status 0, 30% resectable). Induction chemotherapy was tolerable and active (response rate 26%; stable disease 60%). Eight patients did not receive concurrent chemoradiotherapy because of progressive disease (5), death (1), hypersensitivity reaction to paclitaxel (1), and withdrawal of consent (1). Twenty-nine patients received concurrent chemoradiotherapy. The concomitant administration of chest radiotherapy with weekly irinotecan, carboplatin, and paclitaxel was not feasible at the first, second, and third dose levels. DLT was failure to achieve recovery to ≤ grade 1 absolute neutrophil count by the day of scheduled chemotherapy administration. Dose de-escalation to irinotecan 30 mg/m2, paclitaxel 40 mg/m2 (with omission of carboplatin) delivered on weeks 2, 3, 5, and 6 of radiotherapy was the MTD. After induction chemotherapy, partial responses, stable disease, and progressive disease was observed in 26%, 60%, and 14% of patients, respectively. After chemoradiotherapy, partial responses were attained in 16 (55%) patients, whereas 12 patients (41%) attained disease stabilization. Median overall survival was 21 months for the entire cohort. Resectable patients had a median survival of 24 months, whereas unresectable patients had a median survival of 19 months. Differences in overall and progression-free survival rates between resectable and unresectable patients was not statistically significant (p = 0.52 and p = 0.90, respectively). Discussion: Carboplatin, paclitaxel, and irinotecan with concurrent chemoradiotherapy was poorly tolerated as a result of neutropenia. Although dose de-escalation was required for delivery of the regimen, the response rates and survival outcomes were comparable to other similar regimens.
A Shape Modeling System with a Volume Scanning Display and Multisensory Input Device

This paper describes a newly developed 3-D shape modeling system, in which a user can design a free-form surface as if he or she actually manipulates a flexible object made from rubber or clay. Such reality can be realized in the system without any encumbering devices like goggles, glasses, or gloves, which is impossible in conventional virtual reality systems. The system is composed of a volume scanning display for presenting a surface image in a real 3-D space, a multisensory input device for detecting the force for deformation, and a half-silvered mirror for spatial superposition of the image onto the input device. A user can directly manipulate a free-form surface by virtually pushing the image, actually pushing the input device, and at the same time, he or she can feel the input device resist its actual deformation as the resisting force of the virtual surface. The system has several types of deforming models, and two types of free-form surfaces that have different curvatures have been experimentally created.
Design and implementation of on-body real-time depth map generation system

This paper describes the design and implementation of real-time depth map generation system with four key issues: 1) recursive (normalized) correlation technique; 2) cache optimization; 3) online consistency checking method; and 4) applying the MMX/SSE/sup R/ multimedia instructions set. The system is implemented on a standard PC/AT hardware with simple image capture board. Implementation details and system evaluations are also denoted. Furthermore, experiments with robots in real world are shown.
Wave properties of action potentials from fast and slow motor units of rats

The purpose of this study was to identify the frequency, conduction velocity, and wavelength of fast and slow motor unit action potentials (MUAPs) from mixed mammalian muscle. Stimulation and blocking pulses to the sciatic nerve produced varying recruitment patterns (confirmed by force measurements) of fast and slow motor units of the medial gastrocnemius of six rats. Myoelectric signals from the muscle were resolved into their intensity in time and frequency space. Slow MUAPs had a mean frequency (± SEM) of 183 ± 8 Hz, conduction velocity of 3.5 ± 0.6 m s−1, and wavelength of 19 mm. Fast MUAPs had a mean frequency of 369 ± 11 Hz, conduction velocity of 6.7 ± 0.5 m s−1, and wavelength of 18 mm. Frequency and conduction velocity, but not wavelength, were significantly different between the fast and slow MUAPs. The distinct wave properties of fast and slow MUAPs can thus be used to distinguish action potentials from these motor units, and could be used to determine patterns of motor unit recruitment during locomotion. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Muscle Nerve 26: 659–668, 2002
Query-driven iterated neighborhood graph search for scalable visual indexing

In this paper, we address the approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search problem over large scale visual descriptors. We investigate a simple but very effective approach, neighborhood graph (NG) search, which conducts the local search by expanding neighborhoods with a best-first manner. Expanding neighborhood makes it efficient to locate the descriptors with high probability being true NNs. However, it suffers from the local characteristics, and often gets sub-optimal solutions, or conducts exhaustive and continuous neighborhood expansion to find better solutions which deteriorates the query efficiency. We propose a query-driven iterated neighborhood graph search approach to improve the performance. We follow the iterated local search (ILS) strategy widely-used for combinatorial and discrete optimization in operation research, and handle the key issue in applying ILS for neighborhood graph search, Perturbation, which generates a new pivot to restart a local search. The key novelties lie in two-fold: (1) defining the local solution of ANN search over neighborhood graph; (2) presenting a query and search history driven perturbation scheme to generate pivots to restart a new local search. The main benefit from them is avoiding unnecessary neighborhood expansion and hence more efficiently finding true NNs. Experimental results on large scale SIFT indexing and similar image search with tiny images show that our approach performs much better than previous state-of-the-art ANN search approaches.
Can an Integrative Approach to the Management of Depression Help Patients Achieve Functional Recovery? A Review of Current Literature

The neurobiology of emotion regulation is complex and multifactorial. Current models suggest that connections between information processing by the brain and its communications with the mind and body are impaired by chronic stress and the system is dysregulated in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Despite the high prevalence of MDD, the condition remains poorly managed with current treatment approaches, which have traditionally been aimed at correcting a single level of dysfunction, notably in neurotransmitters. A substantial proportion of patients who achieve symptomatic improvement with conventional therapy continue to report residual depressive symptoms and/or poor psychosocial functioning. Few clinical trials have been powered to detect changes in measures of functioning, resulting in a lack of evidence-based guidance for clinicians. The present paper reviews the evidence for an integrated, multipronged approach to the management of depression that may involve pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) approaches such as yoga/meditation, exercise, diet and dietary supplements, and social support groups. The author advocates for the use of a patient-centric approach founded on a strong patientprovider alliance for the management of MDD. A shared decision-making approach should consider the potential role of pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy and CAM, which may enhance symptomatic remission and functional recovery in patients with MDD. These results may be mediated, at least in part, through improved regulation of the Hypothalamic- Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis, and reduced allostatic stress load.
A Cloud-Based Platform for Democratizing and Socializing the Benchmarking Process

Performances evaluation, benchmarking and re-producibility represent significant aspects for evaluating the practical impact of scientific research outcomes in the Computer Science field. In spite of all the benefits (e.g., increasing visibility, boosting impact, improving the research quality) which can be obtained from conducting comprehensive and extensive experi-mental evaluations or providing reproducible software artifacts and detailed description of experimental setup, the required effort for achieving these goals remains prohibitive. In this article, we present the design and the implementation details of the Liquid Benchmarking platform as a social and cloud-based platform for democratizing and socializing the software benchmarking processes. Particularly, the platform facilitates the process of sharing the experimental artifacts (computing resources, datasets, software implementations, benchmarking tasks) as services where the end users can easily design, mashup, execute the experiments and visualize the experimental results with zero installation or configuration efforts. Moreover, the social features of the platform enable the users to share and provide feedback on the results of the executed experiments in a form that can guarantee a transparent scientific crediting process. Finally, we present four benchmarking case studies that have been realized via the Liquid Benchmarking platform in the following domains: XML compression techniques, graph indexing and querying techniques, string similarity join algorithms and reverse K nearest neighbors algorithms.
Apo B/Apo A-I ratio in central and peripheral arterial diseases.

BACKGROUND The apo B/apo A-I ratio represents the balance between atherogenic particles, rich in apo B, and the antiatherogenic ones, apo A-I rich. This study investigated the association between atherosclerotic diseases in different anatomical sites and apo B/apo A-I ratio. METHODS Lipids, lipoproteins, and apolipoproteins A-I and B were assessed in 30 subjects with coronary artery disease (CAD), 26 with ischemic stroke (IS), 30 with peripheral arterial obstructive disease (PAOD), and 38 healthy subjects (controls). RESULTS HDLc and Apo A-I were significantly lower in PAOD and CAD groups, respectively, than in other groups. Significantly higher levels of triglycerides were observed for CAD and PAOD groups than for controls. Apo B was significantly higher in IS group than in control and PAOD groups. The apo B/apo A-I ratio showed significantly higher in CAD and IS groups when compared to control and PAOD groups (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION The apo B/apo A-I ratio was important for identifying an increased trend for coronary and cerebral atherosclerosis. In spite of the increased trend for apo B/apo A-I ratio in IS and CAD groups, the studied variables cannot be considered in an isolated way, given as those parameters were analyzed together by a binary logistic regression, no association has been demonstrated.
Changes in species richness and community productivity during succession on the Loess Plateau (China)

We investigated changes in species richness, community biomass, and productivity during secondary forest succession in Ziwuling area of the Loess Plateau of China. Species richness(number of taxa) increased as the succession proceeds, and peaked at the climax forest community, but the richness growth gradually slowed down as the succession advanced. Community biomass rapidly increased from the herbaceous stage to the shrub stage and declined slightly in the climax forest stage. The maximum community biomass occurred in the pioneer forest stage. Community productivity followed an unimodal curve in the succession, and the maximum productivity occurred in the shrub community at the middle succession stage, and the communities maintained a low and stable productivity at the later succession stages. The herb and shrub species together determined community diversity during succession, while the tree species contributed less to diversity in the communities. The herb and shrub layers had a relatively low biomass, but contributed almost half of the productivity of the forest communities. The relationships between species richness, community biomass and productivity were unimodal during succession, but only the relationship between species richness and community biomass was significant.
Determination of the Amount of UV Absorption Material after Sucrose Gradient Fractionation

Rat liver nuclei deprived of chromatin and nucleoplasm show a spongelike network which preserves its connection with nucleoli, the inner membrane of the nuclear envelope, and nuclear pore complexes. It contains all of the H n R N A , provided the endogenous proteolytic activity is inhibited by a proteolytic inhibitor such as phenylmethyl sulfonyl chloride (PMSC) or the fluoride form (PMSF). In the absence of these proteolytic inhibitors, H n R N A is dissociated from the spongelike network and sediments in a sucrose gradient as polydispersed ribonucleoprotein complexes. Furthermore, purified H n R N A as well as r R N A do not bind to the spongelike network when added to these nuclei. These observations demonstrate that the association of H n R N A to the nuclear skeleton is not an artifact. RNase treatment of the spongelike network digests the majority of the rapidly labeled RNA but does not alter the morphological aspect nor the architecture of this network. E D T A and heparin treatments affect neither the attachment of H n R N A nor the structural organization of this network. Electron microscope studies of the network reveal a characteristic flexuous configuration. Its relationship with diffused and condensed chromatin is discussed.
Experimental Investigation of Adjacent Hall Structures Parameters

Adjacent Hall microsensors, comprising a silicon substrate and four contacts, providing simultaneously two supply inputs and two differential outputs, are characterized. The voltage related sensitivity is in the order of 0.11T, and a cancellation method for offset compensation is used, achieving residual offset in the micro scale which is also compared to a single Hall plate. Keywords—Adjacent Hall sensors, offset compensation, voltage related sensitivity, 0. 18μm CMOS technology.
Physical Activity , Hypertension Control and Quality of Life in Primary Health Care

Background: Physical activity in hypertensive patients may be associated with blood pressure (BP) control, and this control may be associated to a better quality of life(QoL). Thus, the objective of this study is to describe physical activity and QoL in hypertensive patients in primary health care, and the correlation of these variables with BP control measured through 24-hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM). Methods: Cross-sectional study with 143 hypertensive patients seen in a primary health center in the south of Brazil. QoL (WHOQOL Bref) and physical activity (IPAQ – short version) were evaluated, followed by the application of 24-hour ABPM. Results: All patients were classified as sedentary or irregularly active and no patient was considered active. Sixty-one percent of sedentary patients and 49.3% of patients who were irregularly Physical Activity, Hypertension Control and Quality of Life in Primary Health Care Exp Clin Cardiol, Volume 20, Issue 11, 2014 Page 6725 active presented high BP. QoL was associated to ABPM alterations, especially with significant lower QoL in the physical domain in the 24-hour ABPM (p=0.05). Conclusions: Quality of life was positively associated to adequate control in hypertensive patients in primary health care. Physical activity, even if irregular, was associated with better BP control when compared to a sedentary lifestyle.
EVIDENCE BASED PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY AND PRACTICE Change in the total and independent effects of education and occupational social class on mortality: analyses of all Finnish men and women in the period 1971–2000

Objectives: To estimate changes in the total and independent effects of education and occupational social class on mortality over 30 years, and to assess the causes of changes in the independent effects. Methods: Census records linked with death records for 1971–2000 for all Finns aged 30–59 years were studied. The total and independent effects of education and social class on mortality were calculated from relative risks in nested Poisson regression models. Results: Among men and women, the model shows that the total effects of education, and particularly occupational social class on mortality, have increased over time. Among 40–59-year-old people, the effects of education are currently less independent of social class than in the 1970s, but among younger Finns the independent effects have remained stable. The effects of social class on mortality that are independent of education have grown among people of older ages, particularly among men. Conclusions: Changes in the independent effects of socioeconomic measures on mortality are determined by changes in their associations with mortality, and distributional changes that affect the strength of the associations between these measures. Distributional changes are driven by changes in educational systems and labour markets, and are of major importance for the understanding of socioeconomic inequalities in mortality.
Myelodysplastic Syndromes and Other Precursor Myeloid Neoplasms in the Era of Genomic Medicine (Mini Review)

Myeloid neoplasm are derived from precursor cells of myeloid lineage and are composed of a broad spectrum of hematopoietic malignancies. The nature of the myeloid precursors is largely under-investigated until the recent application of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology for genome-wide analysis of myeloid neoplasms. It is important to define precursor myeloid neoplasms mediated by molecular signatures including driver gene mutations essential in disease initiation as well as acquired genetic alterations that play a role in disease progression. In addition to myelodysplastic syndrome with a high risk of leukemic transformation, there are newly proposed early precursor disorders with the potential to evolve into myeloid neoplasms [e.g., clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), and clonal cytopenias of undetermined significance (CCUS)]. Furthermore, certain predisposing germline mutations (e.g. CEBPA, DDX41, RUNX1, ETV6 and GATA) have been recognized with predisposition to develop into myeloid neoplasms. This review paper aims to provide a brief summary of novel concepts of early precursor lesions that could lead to myeloid neoplasms, potential molecular prognostic indicators for MDS, and updated sub-classification of myelodysplastic syndromes according to the 2016 revision of World Health Organization (WHO).
Object-oriented query based on belief fusion: application to dermatological databases

This paper is dedicated to Computer-Aided Diagnosis CAD for skin cancers in order to help the expert (dermatologist) to diagnose a dermatological lesion as benign or malignant. The need of this kind of tools has largely expressed because of the difficulties that have the expert to distinguish benign lesion from melanoma. One way to help him without a classification is to find and display to the expert the most similar images (lesions) to the query (lesion of the patient). The similarity must be measured using features and their representation inspired from the medical diagnosis rules. In fact, the diagnosis rules known as ABCD mnemonics are very interesting because they describe a lesion using color, texture and shape. In order to approach the system from the reality, we build it as a Content-Based Image Retrieval CBIR scheme. Images are represented as an object model including the features and their representation and a set of belief degrees. The aim is to combine, on one hand, the experts analysis which include their knowledge, experience. but also their subjectivity, inexactness, uncertainty, etc. On the other hand, the ground truth based on biopsy results of all the database lesions. The combination gives to the system the autonomy and let it evolve without needing a relevance feedback.
A protein synthesis-dependent increase in E2F1 mRNA correlates with growth regulation of the dihydrofolate reductase promoter

Enhanced expression of genes involved in nucleotide biosynthesis, such as dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), is a hallmark of entrance into the DNA synthesis (S) phase of the mammalian cell cycle. To investigate the regulated expression of the DHFR gene, we stimulated serum-starved NIH 3T3 cells to synchronously reenter the cell cycle. Our previous results show that a cis-acting element at the site of DHFR transcription initiation is necessary for serum regulation. Recently, this element has been demonstrated to bind the cloned transcription factor E2F. In this study, we focused on the role of E2F in the growth regulation of DHFR. We demonstrated that a single E2F site, in the absence or presence of other promoter elements, was sufficient for growth-regulated promoter activity. Next, we showed that the increase in DHFR mRNA at the G1/S-phase boundary required protein synthesis, raising the possibility that a protein(s) lacking in serum-starved cells is required for DHFR transcription. We found that, similar to DHFR mRNA expression, levels of murine E2F1 mRNA were low in serum-starved cells and increased at the G1/S-phase boundary in a protein synthesis-dependent manner. Furthermore, in a cotransfection experiment, expression of human E2F1 stimulated the DHFR promoter 22-fold in serum-starved cells. We suggest that E2F1 may be the key protein required for DHFR transcription that is absent in serum-starved cells. Expression of E2F also abolished the serum-stimulated regulation of the DHFR promoter and resulted in transcription patterns similar to those seen with expression of the adenoviral oncoprotein E1A. In summary, we provide evidence for the importance of E2F in the growth regulation of DHFR and suggest that alterations in the levels of E2F may have severe consequences in the control of cellular proliferation.