Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Staging classification for cancer of the ovary and fallopian tube should include in situ carcinoma

We read with interest the nearly identical articles regarding the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics staging classification for cancers of the ovary and fallopian tube that were published in several journals. What is missing in the staging classification is the in situ carcinoma or Tis category for the ovary and fallopian tube. Cancer staging is important and necessary for explaining epidemiologic changes, defining the disease at the time of presentation, planning adequate treatment, and evaluating the overall impact of new therapies. In situ carcinoma of the ovary is extremely rare. Conversely, in situ carcinoma of the fallopian tube is not as rare as one would expect. In situ carcinoma of the fallopian tube is found in 3% to 12% of BRCA carriers who undergo prophylactic removal of their fallopian tubes. It is hypothesized that the fallopian tube is the origin of ovarian cancer, and clinical studies currently are ongoing to test this theory. An in situ carcinoma does not metastasize, but it can result in implant lesions in the abdomen or lead to the involvement of ascites or peritoneal washings. Due to increased awareness and improved imaging, more and more in situ cancers of the fallopian tube will be detected. Prevention strategies for ovarian cancer and cancer of the fallopian tube are based mainly on surgery. Therefore, it is important to stage these in situ carcinomas correctly to understand each other and to allow for the comparison of treatments. There are 4 possible staging classifications for Tis: 1) Tis without implants or the involvement of ascites and peritoneal washings; 2) Tis with implants but without the involvement of ascites and peritoneal washings; 3) Tis with implants and the involvement of ascites and peritoneal washings; and 4) Tis without implants but with the involvement of ascites and peritoneal washings. Furthermore, all women with cancer of the ovary, fallopian tube, or peritoneum should undergo genetic testing for the BRCA mutation. This also should be recorded in the staging classification. In the era of personalized cancer medicine, accurate staging is essential because it assigns patients to a specific group with specific treatment possibilities and, consequently, improved survival. Only if you look for things will you find them and thereby can improve them.
Larger cortical motor maps after seizures

Expansion of motor maps occurs in both clinical populations with epilepsy and in experimental models of epilepsy when the frontal lobes are involved. We have previously shown that the forelimb area of the motor cortex undergoes extensive enlargement after seizures, although the extent to which many movement representation areas are altered is not clear. Here we hypothesize that movement representations in addition to the forelimb area will be enlarged after cortical seizures. To test our hypotheses, Long Evans Hooded rats received 20 sessions of callosal (or sham) kindling, and then were subjected to intracortical microstimulation to map several movement representations including the jaw, neck, forelimb, hindlimb, trunk and tail. We found significantly larger total map areas of several movement representations, including movements that could be evoked more posterior than they are in control rats. We also show the presence of more multiple movement sites and lower movement thresholds in kindled rats, suggesting that movements not only overlap and share cortical territory after seizures, but become present in formerly non‐responsive sites as they become detectable with our intracortical microstimulation methodology. In summary, several motor map areas become larger after seizures, which may contribute to the interictal motor disturbances that have been documented in patients with epilepsy.
Thalidomide and dexamethasone for resistant multiple myeloma

Summary. Between November 1998 and April 2000, the combination of thalidomide and dexamethasone was evaluated in 47 consecutive patients with multiple myeloma that was resistant to prior high‐dose dexamethasone‐based therapies. Remission was observed in 22 patients (47%), including six patients with complete remission. Side‐effects were frequent, mild and usually reversible, but deep vein thrombosis occurred in 8% of patients. Survival and remission times were longer among patients treated for previous resistant disease rather than for resistant relapse. This experience supports the use of thalidomide–dexamethasone in myeloma patients with resistant disease and justifies further trials in newly diagnosed patients.
Lack of Intrinsic CTLA-4 Expression Has Minimal Effect on Regulation of Antiviral T-Cell Immunity

ABSTRACT CTLA-4 is considered one of the most potent negative regulators of T-cell activation. To circumvent experimental limitations due to fatal lymphoproliferative disease associated with genetic ablation of CTLA-4, we have used radiation chimeras reconstituted with a mixture of CTLA-4+/+ and CTLA-4−/− bone marrow that retain a normal phenotype and allow the evaluation of long-term T-cell immunity under conditions of intrinsic CTLA-4 deficiency. Following virus infection, we profiled primary, memory, and secondary CD8+ and CD4+ T-cell responses directed against eight different viral epitopes. Our data demonstrate unaltered antigen-driven proliferation, acquisition of effector functions, distribution of epitope hierarchies, T-cell receptor repertoire selection, functional avidities, and long-term memory maintenance in the absence of CTLA-4. Moreover, regulation of memory T-cell survival and homeostatic proliferation, as well as secondary responses, was equivalent in virus-specific CTLA4+/+ and CTL-A-4−/− T-cell populations. Thus, lack of CTLA-4 expression by antigen-specific T cells can be compensated for by extrinsic factors in the presence of CTLA-4 expression by other cells. These findings have implications for the physiologic, pathological, and therapeutic regulation of costimulation.
Real-Time Workload Monitoring: Improving Cognitive Process Models

Abstract : This article describes a study aimed at validating a method to measure workload in near-real-time in a complex human-machine-interface (HMI). Modeling cognitive processes, reviewing resource models and developing new displays and controls for aircraft cockpits require tools ensuring a sufficiently precise estimation of workload with respect to their quantitative and temporal resolution. These tools are essential not only for validating existing models and theories, but also to discover new interrelations. Currently, however, such tools are not (yet) available. Therefore, at the flight simulator center in Bueckeburg (Germany) it is planned to conduct various series of experiments to test the pupillometric analysis technique Index of Cognitive Activity with regard to it being suitable to be used in an aircraft environment. For a validation, mental stress values obtained from different sources will be correlated with each other. A workload index with the Index of Cognitive Activity method will be obtained in a computer test and during a standardized simulator mission flight. A NASA TLX carried out during the flight and during mission debriefing will be used for comparison. While the first series of experiments described here aims at a general validation, further experiments will study scaling and how to validate multiple resource models.
Generalized Haar-Like Features for Fast Face Detection

In the framework of Viola-Jones' fast object detection, Haar like features are extracted from gray level image. This paper proposes a new concept of gray-like image from which generalized Haar like features can also be exacted, so as to make use of other forms of images in addition to gray level image in Haar+Adaboost schema. As an application of the gray-like images, the generalized Haar-like features are constructed for fast face detection. Experimental results show that the boosted face detector using the generalized Haar-like features outperforms significantly the original using the basic Haar-like features.
CHAPTER THREE THE ECONOMICS OF PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION

This paper examines the economics of ‘public sector information’ (PSI). Public sector information is information held by a public sector organisation, for example a government department or, more generally, any entity which is majority owned and/or controlled by government.2 To have a convenient term we label the entity holding or providing the information the ‘public sector information holder’ (PSIH). 3 Classic examples, of public sector information in most countries would include, among many others (see Table 1 for a more substantial list): geospatial data, meteorological information and official statistics. With the development of the ‘knowledge’ economy, driven largely by the advance of digital technology, data plays an increasingly prominent role within our societies, both commercially and otherwise. Large and growing businesses have been built on collecting, organising, and analysing data.4 Furthermore, almost all businesses, especially those in the services sector, increasingly utilise, and require, a wide variety of data sources to conduct their activities. At the same time, citizens and others have come to depend on, and indeed expect, access to a widerange of information – be it for planning journeys or keeping up to date with the activities of their governments. While much data is supplied from outside the public sector, compared to other parts of the economy, the public sector plays an unusually prominent role. In many key areas, a public sector organisation may be the only, or one among very few, sources of the particular information it provides (e.g. for geospatial and meteorological information). As such the
Role of bacterial biofertilizers in agriculture and forestry

Many rhizospheric bacterial strains possess plant growth-promoting mechanisms. These bacteria can be applied as biofertilizers in agriculture and forestry, enhancing crop yields. Bacterial biofertilizers can improve plant growth through several different mechanisms: (i) the synthesis of plant nutrients or phytohormones, which can be absorbed by plants, (ii) the mobilization of soil compounds, making them available for the plant to be used as nutrients, (iii) the protection of plants under stressful conditions, thereby counteracting the negative impacts of stress, or (iv) defense against plant pathogens, reducing plant diseases or death. Several plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have been used worldwide for many years as biofertilizers, contributing to increasing crop yields and soil fertility and hence having the potential to contribute to more sustainable agriculture and forestry. The technologies for the production and application of bacterial inocula are under constant development and improvement and the bacterial-based biofertilizer market is growing steadily. Nevertheless, the production and application of these products is heterogeneous among the different countries in the world. This review summarizes the main bacterial mechanisms for improving crop yields, reviews the existing technologies for the manufacture and application of beneficial bacteria in the field, and recapitulates the status of the microbe-based inoculants in World Markets.
Resistance to hydroxychloroquine due to smoking in a patient with lupus erythematosus tumidus

carried out an almost identical study on 70 adults. They found that the mean percentage of the total BSA represented by the whole palmar surface of a man’s hand was 0Æ81% (range 0Æ61–0Æ91), and of a woman’s hand was 0Æ67% (range 0Æ51–0Æ76). Similar calculations were performed in a study of 91 children aged 1–13 years. The entire palmar surface of a child’s hand was found to be, on average, 0Æ94% [95% confidence interval (CI) 0Æ93–0Æ97] of their total BSA. The study of 70 adults also measured the area of the ‘palm alone’, i.e. without any of the five digits and found this to be 0Æ52% (range 0Æ37–0Æ62) of total BSA for men, and 0Æ43% (range 0Æ30–0Æ53) of total BSA for women. The study of 91 children also calculated the surface area of just the palm to be 0Æ52% (95% CI 0Æ51–0Æ53). However, the definition given of the child’s palm was the palmar aspect of the hand ‘excluding the fingers’ and this description is imprecise because the authors are not explicit as to whether the thumb is included as part of the palm, or excluded with the fingers. There is an inherent problem with the term ‘palm’ as it can mean either the entire palmar surface of the hand, or the palmar surface excluding the five digits, or the palmar surface with the thumb but not the four fingers. No doubt Berth-Jones et al. used the latter definition of the palm because this is what is used by the Lattice System Physician’s Global Assessment (LS-PGA). In the instructions on using the LS-PGA such a ‘palm’ without the four fingers is said to approximate to 1% of the total BSA. This approximation is extremely inaccurate according to the evidence that we present here, and we would not wish this inaccuracy to be perpetuated. We have previously proposed the term ‘handprint’, analogous to a ‘footprint’, to get over the difficulties with the term ‘palm’. The ‘handprint’ is the surface area of the whole palmar surface of the flat hand, including the palm and all five digits, with the digits closed together rather than spread (Fig. 1). Thus defined, the ‘handprint’ of the patient does approximate to 1% of their total BSA in children and just < 1% of total BSA in adults.
Lesions of the Basolateral Amygdala and Orbitofrontal Cortex Differentially Affect Acquisition and Performance of a Rodent Gambling Task

Risky decision making on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been observed in several psychiatric disorders, including substance abuse, schizophrenia, and pathological gambling. Such deficits are often attributed to impaired processing within the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) because patients with damage to this area or to the amygdala, which is strongly interconnected with the OFC, can likewise show enhanced choice of high-risk options. However, whether damage to the OFC or amygdala impairs subjects' ability to learn the task, or actually affects the decision-making process itself, is currently unclear. To address these issues, rats were trained to perform a rodent gambling task (rGT) either before or after bilateral excitotoxic lesions to the basolateral amygdala (BLA) or OFC. Maximum profits in both the rGT and IGT are obtained by favoring smaller rewards associated with lower penalties, and avoiding the tempting, yet ultimately disadvantageous, large reward options. Lesions of the OFC or BLA made before task acquisition initially impaired animals' ability to determine the optimal strategy, but did not disrupt decision making in the long term. In contrast, lesions of the BLA, but not the OFC, made after the task had been acquired increased risky choice. These results suggest that, although both regions contribute to the development of appropriate choice behavior under risk, the BLA maintains a more fundamental role in guiding these decisions. The maladaptive choice pattern observed on the IGT in patients with OFC lesions could therefore partially reflect a learning deficit, whereas amygdala damage may give rise to a more robust decision-making impairment.
Hydrodynamic boundary conditions, correlation functions, and Kubo relations for confined fluids.

Dynamical correlation functions of a fluid slab confined between two solid walls are computed using a phenomenologial, hydrodynamic appoach that generalizes Onsager's principle of linear regression of fluctuations to inhomogeneous systems. The phenomenological results are compared to exact molecular-dynamics simulations on simple model systems. This comparison permits a determination of the phenomenological parameters that describe the hydrodynamics of the fluid slab and especially of the boundary conditions (BC's) that account for the presence of solid walls. In most cases, the hydrodynamic BC for the tangential velocity field is found to be a no-slip BC and must be applied in a plane that is separated from the solid by about one layer of fluid atoms. A set of formal relations between the parameters that characterize the hydrodynamic BC and the equilibrium correlation functions of the inhomogeneous fluid is also derived. These relations are analogous to the usual Green-Kubo equalities for the transport coefficients of bulk fluids.
Oligodendrocyte Programmed Cell Death and Central Myelination Deficiency Induced in Transgenic Mice by Synergism between c-Myc and Oct-6*

The basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor c-Myc is a potent trigger of programmed cell death when overexpressed during late oligodendrocyte development in transgenic mice. Here we provide evidence that c-Myc can act synergistically with the Pit, Oct, Unc homeodomain transcription factor Oct-6 to produce myelin disease pathogenesis in transgenic mice. More than 70% of c-myc/Oct-6 bitransgenic mice, obtained from crosses between phenotypically normal heterozygous mice of various My (c-Myc) and Oc (Oct-6) transgenic strains that express c-myc and oct-6 transgenes under transcriptional control of the myelin basic protein gene, developed severe neurological disturbances characterized by action tremors, recurrent seizures, and premature death. Affected bitransgenic mice exhibited multiple hypomyelinated lesions in the white matter that did not stain with myelin-specific antibodies against myelin basic protein, proteolipid protein, CNPase, and myelin-associated glycoprotein. The mice also exhibited a larger number of terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end-labeling positive cells in the white matter as well as ultrastructural evidence of glial cell death and astrogliosis. These observations indicate that the myelin lesions observed in the c-myc/oct-6bitransgenic mice result from the untimely programmed cell death of oligodendroglia and that the c-myc and oct-6transgenes act synergistically in producing the lesions.
Prognostic significance of blood pressure variability after thrombolysis in acute stroke

Objective: To evaluate the impact of early blood pressure (BP) changes on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) lesion evolution and clinical outcome in patients with stroke treated with IV tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). Methods: We prospectively evaluated 80 patients with stroke with a documented middle cerebral artery occlusion treated with IV tPA. Multiple repeated systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) BP measurements were obtained during 24 hours after admission. All patients underwent DWI, perfusion-weighted imaging, and magnetic resonance angiography before and 36–48 hours after thrombolysis. Recanalization was assessed on transcranial Doppler at 6 hours of stroke onset. NIH Stroke Scale scores were recorded at baseline and 24 hours. Modified Rankin Scale was used to assess 3-month outcome. Results: Recanalization occurred in 44 (55%) patients. BP variability, estimated as the SD of the mean, was associated with DWI lesion growth (r = 0.46, p = 0.0003 for SBP and r = 0.26, p = 0.02 for DBP), early clinical course (p = 0.06 for SBP and p = 0.01 for DBP), and 3-month outcome (p = 0.002 for SBP and 0.07 for DBP). However, the prognostic significance of BP changes differed depending on the presence of recanalization. SBP variability emerged as an independent predictor of DWI lesion growth (β: 6.9; 95% CI, 3.2 to 10.7, p = 0.003) and worse stroke outcome (OR: 11; 95% CI: 2.2 to 56.1; p = 0.004) in patients without recanalization, but not in recanalized patients. Conclusion: Blood pressure variability is associated with greater diffusion-weighted imaging lesion growth and worse clinical course in patients with stroke treated with IV tissue plasminogen activator. However, its impact varies depending on the occurrence of early recanalization after thrombolysis.
Formation and growth of heterotrophic aerobic biofilms on small suspended particles in airlift reactors

In this article, the conditions for aerobic biofilm formation on suspended particles, the dynamics of biofilm formation, and the biomass production during the start‐up of a Biofilm Airlift Suspension reactor (BAS reactor) have been studied. The dynamics of biofilm formation during start up in the biofilm airlift suspension reactor follows three consecutive stages: bare carrier, microcolonies or patchy biofilms on the carrier, and biofilms completely covering the carrier. The effect of hydraulic retention time and of substrate loading rate on the formation of biofilms were investigated. To obtain in a BAS reactor a high biomass concentration and predominantly continuous biofilms, which completely surround the carrier, the hydraulic retention time must be shorter than the inverse of the maximum growth rate of the suspended bacteria. At longer hydraulic retention times, a low amount of attached biomass can be present on the carrier material as patchy biofilms. During the start‐up at short hydraulic retention times the bare carrier concentration decreases, the amount of biomass per biofilm particle remains constant, and biomass increase in the reactor is due to increasing numbers of biofilm particles. The substrate surface loading rate has effect only on the amount of biomass on the biofilm particle. A higher surface load leads to a thicker biofilm.
Femtosecond studies of nonequilibrium electronic processes in metals.

An ultrashort laser pulse incident on a metal first interacts with the electrons which thermalize rapidly via electron-electron scattering. If the pulses are sufficiently short, electron temperatures in excess of the lattice temperature are generated since the electronic specific heat is much less than that of the lattice. Thermal relaxation of the electrons occurs primarily through electron-phonon interaction. Such processes have been investigated theoretically and observed experimentally[1-3].
On the role of asymmetries in the reversal of the solar magnetic field

Abstract We study how the solar magnetic field evolves from antisymmetric (dipolar) to symmetric (quadrupolar) state during the course of its 11-yr cycle. We show that based on equatorial symmetries of the induction equation, flux transport solar mean field dynamo models excite mostly the antisymmetric (dipolar) family whereas a decomposition of the solar magnetic field data reveals that both families should be excited to similar amplitude levels. We propose an alternative solar dynamo solution based on North-South asymmetry of the meridional circulation to better reconcile models and observations.
A receive linear array beamforming using Spatially Variant Apodization

We present a novel beamformer for a receive linear array based on Spatially Variant Apodization. This technique reduces the side-lobe level compared with a uniform linear array, at the same time keeping the main lobe beam-width. For example, the side-lobe level of a 128-element linear array would be better than -30 dB in the presence of phase and amplitude errors based on the proposed technique (5.8 degrees r.m.s. and 0.5 dB r.m.s. respectively).
Sliding Mode Control Technique for an Induction Motor Drive Supplied by a Three-Level Voltage Source Inverter

The possibility of using sliding-mode (SM) technique for an induction mo- tor drive with a class of inverters dedicated to high power, t he three-level voltage- source inverter (3LVSI), has been presented. A designed control based on the pro- posed two-step design procedure is discussed; drive simulation results are shown.