Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of tumour markers, cytogenetics.

A review is presented on the role of conventional and molecular tumour markers (TM) in diagnosis and monitoring of patients with biliopancreatic malignancies. For biliopancreatic malignancy, following CEA as more historical and basic TM of gastrointestinal diseases, the mainstay marker is CA 19-9 as monosialo-ganglioside/glycolipid and sialyl derivative of lacto-N-fucopentaose II (sialyl-Lewis(a), hapten of human Lewis(a) bloodgroup determinant). It is detected in serum of healthy individuals at low concentration < 40 U/ml, with lower and often transitional elevation in benign hepatobiliary diseases and with highest levels in excretory ductal pancreatic adenocarcinoma (s = 70%-95%, sp = 72%-90%), biliary (s = 55%-79%), hepatocellular and cholangiocellular cancer (s = 22%-51%) besides gastric, colorectal and ovarian cancer and occasionally in lung, breast and uterine cancer. Physiologically elevated concentrations in healthy individuals have to be considered in all sorts of secretions (e.g. sputum, saliva, bronchial/gastric secretions, bile juice) of individuals with Lewis(a)-positive secretor status in contrast with low or lacking serum levels of CA 19-9 in patients with Lewis(a-/b-) status (7%-10% of population). In biliopancreatic malignancies, especially pancreatic cancer, CA 19-9 correlates well with clinical course of disease following surgical, chemo- or radiotherapy by a quick normalisation within 2-4 weeks after complete surgery, a transient decrease with successful palliative therapy and an often anticipated increase (lead time up to 6 months) before clinical detection in case of relapse or progressive disease. From CA 19-9 related TM tests some are detecting in addition to sialyl-Lewis(a) (sialyllacto-N-fucopentaose II) also the non-fucosylated precursor sialyl-Lewis(c) (sialyllacto-N-tetraose: CA 50, CA 242, Span-1) solely detected by the DUPAN-2 test and independent of the Lewis(a) secretor status. Some other markers comprise in addition to sialyl-Lewis(a) partially the non-sialylated Lewis(a) antigen (CA 195, CAM 43, CA 494) or are less related (CAM 17.1). The initial phase of screening and early detection is hoped to be better assessed by using molecular markers detecting gene mutations (p53, K-ras), growth factors (EGF, TGF-alpha, TGF-beta, HB-EGF, a/bFGFs, KGF) and growth factor receptor alterations (EGFr, c-erbB2/3/4). From these, K-ras mutations detected in blood, stool and bile juice of patients at risk for pancreatic cancer seem to be more promising than p53 alterations as a more later step in carcinogenesis, although they are neither yet well established nor standardised by reliable assays. In contrast growth factor and growth factor receptor alterations mainly concerning signal transducing systems seem to reflect increased tumour aggressiveness, thus shorter survival and poorer prognosis thereby contributing in the selection of patients for more aggressive therapy.
Infantile muscular atrophy.

Although infantile muscular atrophy has been recognized for about 70 years, a comprehensive description of its variable clinical course is generally wanting. The purpose of the present article is to call attention to the wide spectrum of its onset and severity and to correlate these features with the pathological changes. Historical In 1891 Werdnig1described 2 brothers who exhibited toward the end of their first year a progressive weakness beginning in the pelvic and thigh muscles. One brother was able to stand before the weakness was obvious. Soon after the weakness appeared in the legs, tremor throughout active movement was noted in their arms and hands. One child died from pertussis at the age of 3 years. Autopsy, which did not include the brain, showed a bilateral, symmetrical loss of anterior horn cells and a glial proliferation in these zones. Clarke's column was intact as were all the tracts
Fault tolerant remote procedure call

A scheme is presented that makes a remote procedure call (RPC) mechanism fault-tolerant to hardware failures. Fault tolerance is provided by replicating the procedure at a group of nodes, called a cluster. The copies in a cluster are linearly ordered. A call to a procedure is sent to the first copy in the cluster and is propagated internally to all other copies. In the event of failures, the first copy in the cluster that has not failed returns the result to the caller. The scheme is transparent to the user and supports nested procedure calls. It has been implemented on a network of Sun workstations making use of Sun's existing RPC mechanism. <<ETX>>
An Analytic Center Based Column Generation Algorithm for Convex Quadratic Feasibility Problems

We consider the analytic center based column generation algorithm for the problem of finding a feasible point in a set defined by a finite number of convex quadratic inequalities. At each iteration the algorithm computes an approximate analytic center of the set defined by the intersection of quadratic inequalities generated in the previous iterations. If this approximate analytic center is a solution, then the algorithm terminates; otherwise a quadratic inequality violated at the current center is selected and a new quadratic cut (defined by a convex quadratic inequality) is placed near the approximate center. As the number of cuts increases, the set defined by their intersection shrinks and the algorithm eventually finds a solution to the problem. Previously, similar analytic center based column generation algorithms were studied first for the linear feasibility problem and later for the general convex feasibility problem. Our method differs from these early methods in that we use "quadratic cuts" in the computation instead of linear cuts. Moreover, our method has a polynomial worst case complexity of $O(n\ln \frac{1}{\varepsilon})$ on the total number of cuts to be used, where $n$ is the number of convex quadratic polynomial inequalities in the problem and $\varepsilon$ is the radius of the largest ball contained in the feasible set. In contrast, the early column generation methods using linear cuts can only solve the convex quadratic feasibility problem in pseudopolynomial time.
[Evaluation of chromogenic medium CPS ID2 (bioMérieux) in urine cultures].

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to evaluate the chromogenic agar plate CPS ID2 (bioMérieux) and determine its cost-benefit ratio. METHODS A total of 2,193 urinary sediments were processed. The urine culture was carried out in CPS ID2 agar and in cystine-lactose electrolyte deficient (CLED) agar, when needed. Identification of the microorganisms was performed following standard microbiologic procedures through biochemical tests prepared in our laboratory. The identification, from CPS ID2 agar, by direct detection in medium of four metabolic activities: beta-glucuronidase, beta-glucosidase, deaminase, and indol production, was performed following to manufacturer's instructions. RESULTS A total of 289 urine cultures were positive, 18 were negative and 34 were contaminated samples. The identification, directly performed from the colonies detected in CPS ID2 agar, was correct in 96% of 166 Escherichia coli, in 92% of 24 Proteus mirabilis and in 97% of 38 enterococci. CPS ID2 agar exhibited 94% and 100% sensitivity and specificity, respectively in E. coli identification, 92% and 100% in P. mirabilis and 97% and 99% in Enterococcus. The use of this new media, CPS ID2, in our laboratory, implies a budgetary increment. However, if commercial galleries are used for routine identification, the cost will be reduced using this new media. CONCLUSIONS The CPS ID2 agar allows the isolation and direct identification of the most frequent urinary tract pathogens: E. coli, P. mirabilis and Enterococcus in primary isolation medium. Using this medium, bacteriologists will be able to save time and reagents when identifying the most common uropathogens. Furthermore, the use of this medium would reduce costs in some laboratories.
Association between Nerve Growth Factor Gene Polymorphism and Executive Dysfunction in Japanese Patients with Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease and Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

Background/Aims: To address the clinical neurocognitive roles of nerve growth factor (NGF) genetic polymorphism in early-stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (A-MCI), we investigated the association between this single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and executive dysfunction as a nonmemory cognitive impairment. Methods: Among 200 outpatients with dementia and MCI whose NGF SNP rs6330 genotype was identified, those with A-MCI (n = 35) and early-stage AD (n = 67) were recruited and divided into three groups according to genotype (C/C: n = 58, C/T: n = 39, T/T: n = 5). Then, the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) scores were compared among the three (C/C, C/T, T/T) or two (C/C, T carrier) genotype groups. Results: Among the subtests, a significant difference was only noted for the go/no-go scores (p < 0.01) between C/C and T carriers. However, no significant differences in the demographic variables and other neuropsychological subtest scores reflecting attentional and memory function were observed among the genotypes. Conclusion: Regarding the functional roles of neurotrophin polymorphisms as they relate to executive dysfunction, the NGF gene rs6330 might influence the inhibition task in Japanese patients with early-stage AD or A-MCI.
Local Binary Pattern Based Resolution Variation Video-Based Face Recognition

Video-based face recognition is a very challenging problem as there is a variation in resolution, illumination, pose, facial expressions and occlusion. In this paper, we have presented an approach for resolution variation video-based face recognition system using the combination of local binary pattern (LBP), principal component analysis (PCA) and feed forward neural network (FFNN). We used, standard as well as created database. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the system. To the best of our knowledge this is the first work addressing the issue of resolution variation for video-based face recognition with this approach. We have experimented with three different video face databases (Created database, NRC_IIT & HONDA/UCSD) and compared with benchmark methods. Experimental results show that our system achieves better performance than other video-based face recognition algorithms on challenging resolution variation video face databases and thus advancing the state-of-the-art.
Low-frequency Raman scattering study of six nucleosides

Raman spectroscopy was used to study the low-frequency (⩽200 cm−1) vibrations in crystalline samples of six naturally occurring nucleosides: deoxythymidine (dT), deoxycytidine (dC), deoxyadenosine (dA), uridine (rU), cytidine (rC), and adenosine (rA). Such low-frequency vibrations are important for biological processes in which the conformation of a nucleic acid molecule changes. These experiments also provide a test for the low-frequency vibrational modes of dT, dC, and dA predicted by Shishkin et al.
CFAR detection of moving target for Monopulse-SAR based on statistical analysis of complex monopulse ratio

An efficient approach to achieve ground moving target indication (GMTI) for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is to use the Monopulse-SAR system. This paper examines the statistics of complex monopulse ratio (CMR) for SAR/GMTI model when complex Gaussian clutter-plus-noise is considered. The two dimensional probability density function (pdf) of CMR is analyzed in detail. An automatic constant false-alarm rate (CFAR) detector with the probability of false alarm given in a closed-form for moving targets is provided and extended to a multi-CMRD form to further improve the final detection performance. Experimental results are presented to examine the detection performance and validate the theoretical analysis.
Modifications to surface chemistry and nanotopography of poly(ethylene terephthalate) by marine bacteria

The surface chemistry and nanotopography of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) was successfully modified by marine bacteria, indicating the initial stages of biodegradation. PET surfaces became rougher relative to the control surfaces in the presence of bacterial communities regardless of whether they were primarily phototrophic or heterotrophic. Only surfaces exposed to primarily heterotrophic bacteria, however, changed significantly in surface chemistry; these samples showed a decrease in oxygen groups across the surface. The results seem to indicate two different mechanisms of PET degradation depending on whether the bacterial community is primarily phototrophic or heterotrophic.
Systemic inflammation and decline in lung function in a general population: a prospective study

Background: An increase in levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of systemic inflammation, is associated with reduced forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), supporting the hypothesis that the pathophysiology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has a systemic inflammatory component. However, few large studies have assessed the relationship between systemic inflammation as measured by CRP and decline in lung function prospectively in a randomly selected population. Methods: In 1991, data were collected on FEV1 and forced vital capacity (FVC) and a blood sample was taken from 2442 randomly selected adults in a community-based cohort. In 2000 these measures were repeated in 1301 individuals. The level of serum CRP was analysed in these samples from 1991 and 2000. Results: In cross-sectional analyses of data from 1991 and 2000, serum CRP levels were inversely related to FEV1 and FVC. After adjustment for smoking and other confounders, the difference in FEV1 was reduced by −9 ml (95% CI –13 to –5) and –7 ml (95% CI –13 to –2) for each mg/l increment in serum CRP in 1991 and 2000, respectively. There was no significant association between baseline serum CRP levels and decline in FEV1 and FVC over 9 years. Conclusions: Although serum CRP levels are inversely associated with lung function in cross-sectional studies, there was no effect of a marker of systemic inflammation on decline in lung function over 9 years.
WUST CRF-Based System at NTCIR-13 ECA Task

This paper describes our work on Emotion Cause Analysis (ECA) task in NTCIR-13. This task aims to detect the emotion cause description when an emotion happened. In this paper, we apply the Conditional Random Field (CRF) classification model to identifying the emotion cause description with a series of features, such as POS features, basic word features, distance features, and contextual features. The system includes three parts, i.e. data preprocessing, feature extraction, and CRF classifier. Experimental results demonstrate that the CRF model is superior to other classification models in the emotion cause description detection.
Maternal Epidermal Growth Factor Deficiency Causes Fetal Hypoglycemia and Intrauterine Growth Retardation in Mice: Possible Involvement of Placental Glucose Transporter GLUT3 Expression1.

We investigated the physiological role of epidermal growth factor (EGF) in fetal growth in mice in which midgestational sialoadenectomy induced maternal EGF deficiency. Sialoadenectomy decreased the fetal weight significantly, indicating that maternal EGF deficiency caused intrauterine growth retardation. The weight of the fetal liver in the sialoadenectomized mice was reduced in proportion to the decrease in body weight (82.7 ± 10.2 vs. 70.9 ± 10.9 mg), whereas the brain weight was not reduced. Sialoadenectomy significantly decreased the glucose concentration in fetal plasma (86.0 ± 13.0 vs. 63.0 ± 11.8 mg/dl) without affecting the maternal plasma level of glucose. Transplacental transfer of 3H-2-deoxyglucose was significantly decreased by sialoadenectomy (5.17 ± 1.25 vs. 2.94 ± 1.02%), but transfer of 14C-aminoisobutyric acid was not affected. Northern blot analysis and in situ hybridization of glucose transporter isoform GLUT1 and GLUT3 messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in placenta revealed that sialoadenectomy s.
A new bioeconomic simulation tool for small scale fisheries based on game theory: GAMEFISTO model

GAMEFISTO simulation model is presented as a tool to improve the small scale fisheries bioeconomic simulation techniques. The main novelty of the current model is the implementation of game theoretic techniques for forecasting the fishing effort trends and consequently, the fish population levels and the economic outcome, includ- ing landings, income and net profits. The model assigns individual fishing strategies to individual vessels according to their technical characteristics. The fishermen within a fishing fleet exploiting a single stock are assumed to be the decision agents, who share not only a fish population (modelled through stock externality) but also a market, through an offer-demand function (market externality). Mediterranean fisheries need to be analysed at vessel level due to the het- erogeneity of its fishing fleets. A ten year simulation on red shrimp, Aristeus antennatus, is presented as an application of the presented GAMEFISTO model.
Multisensory robots and sensor-based path generation

The paper first outlines the recent sensory developments in the DFVLR robotics lab, these are different force-torque sensors, laser range finders, inductive sensors and sensor balls for robot and 3D-computer-grafic control. With the example of our proposed multisensory arrangement implying vision, range sensing, force-torque and speech, the fine-motion planning and path generation techniques as developed in our lab are discussed. The special case of a two-arm cooperative robot using two force-torque-sensors is treated in more detail. Practical results are demonstrated in a film including cooperative two arm robot control.
Progressive dysarthria and augmentative and alternative communication in conversation: establishing the reliability of the Dysarthria-in-Interaction Profile.

BACKGROUND The Dysarthria-in-Interaction Profile's potential contribution to the clinical assessment of dysarthria-in-conversation has been outlined in the literature, but its consistency of use across different users has yet to be reported. AIMS To establish the level of consistency across raters on four different interaction categories. That is, how reliable clinicians are when rating a series of videos. A secondary aim was to investigate the relationship between raters' estimates of dysarthric speech intelligibility and their rating of each dyad's overall interaction. METHODS & PROCEDURES Ten UK speech and language therapists rated independently a series of 40 video samples featuring people with progressive dysarthria in conversation with family members. An equal number of video samples was selected from a collection of recordings featuring four different types of interactional relationship. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The results show that practising speech and language therapists can rate consistently, and with a high degree of agreement, a series of everyday conversation videos featuring dyads with progressive dysarthria and presenting at different interaction levels. The results also indicate that speech intelligibility does not predict the level of impairment in the interaction in a systematic way suggesting that conversation contains elements that are not directly related to speech intelligibility. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS Further work is required to establish the clinical functionality of this tool, but the results presented here support the development of this conversation profiling system, particularly for people experiencing significant intelligibility problems but remaining highly interactive/communicative.
State-of-the-Art in Force and Tactile Sensing for Minimally Invasive Surgery

Haptic perception plays a very important role in surgery. It enables the surgeon to feel organic tissue hardness, measure tissue properties, evaluate anatomical structures, and allows him/her to commit appropriate force control actions for safe tissue manipulation. However, in minimally invasive surgery, the surgeon's ability of perceiving valuable haptic information through surgical instruments is severely impaired. Performing the surgery without such sensory information could lead to increase of tissue trauma and vital organic tissue damage. In order to restore the surgeon's perceptual capability, methods of force and tactile sensing have been applied with attempts to develop instruments that can be used to detect tissue contact forces and generate haptic feedback to the surgeon. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in force and tactile sensing technologies applied in minimally invasive surgery. Several sensing strategies including displacement-based, current-based, pressure-based, resistive-based, capacitive-based, piezoelectric-based, vibration-based, and optical-based sensing are discussed.
Impact of User Skills and Network Effects on the Competition between Open Source and Proprietary Software

Despite the availability of source code, deploying open source software in an enterprise environment requires skills. Recent surveys and case studies show that the skills of IT staff in an organization are one of the key factors in open source software adoption decisions. Another important factor organizations consider when choosing a platform is network effects. This paper studies how users' skills and network effects may influence the market where proprietary software competes with open source software. In the model, users make adoption decisions considering their own skills and the network effects of the software, and the proprietary software vendor prices its product strategically. It is found that in the presence of network effects, the proprietary software dominates the market when the open source software does not provide higher benefits to users. This implies that open source software, as a low-cost substitute to proprietary software, may not survive in a market exhibiting network effects. To gain market share, open source software has to outperform proprietary software by a large margin, which can be achieved when a significant portion of users are highly skilled and thus can customize the open source software to better satisfy their needs.
Genomic heterogeneity among human and nonhuman strains of hepatitis A virus

Cloned cDNA probes derived from the P1 and P2 regions of the genome of HM175 virus, a reference strain of human hepatitis A virus (HAV), failed to hybridize under standard stringency criteria with RNA from PA21 and PA33 viruses, two epizootiologically related HAV strains recovered from naturally infected New World owl monkeys. Hybridization of these probes to PA21 RNA was only evident under reduced stringency conditions. However, cDNA representing the 5' nontranslated region of the HM175 genome hybridized equally to HM175 and PA21 RNA under standard stringency conditions, while a probe derived from the 3' 1,400 bases of the genome yielded a reduced hybridization signal with PA21 RNA. In contrast, no differences could be discerned between HM175 virus and three other HAV strains of human origin (GR8, LV374, and MS1) in any region of the genome, unless increased stringency conditions were used. These results suggest that PA21 and PA33 are unique among HAV isolates and may represent a virus native to the owl monkey. Despite extremely poor homology within the P1 region, which encodes capsid polypeptides, monoclonal antibody analysis confirmed that the immunodominant neutralization epitopes of HAV were highly conserved between HM175 and PA21 viruses. Furthermore, experimental challenge of the owl monkey with successive PA33 and HM175 inocula confirmed a high but incomplete degree of cross-protection. Only one of six monkeys previously infected with PA33 developed recurrent hepatitis 28 days after intravenous HM175 challenge, while none of six monkeys previously infected with HM175 had demonstrable hepatitis following PA33 challenge. These data provide molecular evidence for the existence of HAV strains unique to nonhuman primate species and indicate that strict conservation of antigenic function may accompany substantial genetic divergence in HAV.