Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adjuvant therapy for pathological T3N0M0 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Background Tumors invading the depth of adventitia (T3) are the most common pathological type of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). For patients without lymph nodes metastasis, the role of adjuvant therapy is uncertain. This study was intended to retrospectively analyze the survival effects of postoperative adjuvant therapy in such patients. Methods A total of 200 patients with pathological T3N0M0 (pT3N0M0) ESCC from January 2012 to September 2014 were enrolled, including a surgery-alone group (Group S) of 111 patients and a surgery followed with adjuvant chemo/radiation/chemoradiation therapy group (Group S + aCRT) of 89 patients. Results There was no significant difference in preoperative basic characteristics and postoperative complications between the two groups. Among all patients, 5-year overall survival (OS) rate was 56.6% and the 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) rate was 51.1%, respectively. The 5-year OS rate was 47.2% in Group S, and 68.4% in Group S + aCRT (P=0.004). The 5-year DFS rate was 44.4% in Group S and 59.3% in Group S + aCRT (P=0.036). The 5-year OS and DFS were improved by adjuvant chemoradiotherapy in the subgroups of males, tumor located at the middle of thoracic esophagus, moderate differentiation, number of resected lymph nodes <15. Multivariate analysis showed that adjuvant chemoradiotherapy and female were associated with improved survival. Conclusions In our study, the adjuvant therapy was associated with improved survival for patients with pT3N0M0 ESCC.
Personalized Therapy Design for Liquid Tumors via Optimal Control Theory

One of the key challenges in current cancer research is the development of reliable methods for the definition of personalized therapeutic strategies, based on increasingly available experimental data on single patients. To this end, methods from control theory can be effectively employed on patient-specific pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic models to generate robust data-driven experimental hypotheses. Here we introduce the Control Theory for Therapy Design (CT4TD) theoretical framework for the generation of optimized personalized therapeutic strategies in cancer patients, based on optimal control theory and population dynamics modeling. The CT4TD framework can help clinicians in designing patient-specific therapeutic regimens, with the specific goal of optimizing the efficacy of the cure while reducing the costs, especially in terms of toxicity and adverse effects. CT4TD can be used at the time of the diagnosis in order to set optimized personalized therapies to reach selected target drug concentrations. Furthermore, if longitudinal data on patients under treatment are available, our approach introduces the possibility of adjusting the therapy with the explicit goal of minimizing the tumor burden measured in each case. As a case study, we present the application of CT4TD to Imatinib administration in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, in which we show that the optimized therapeutic strategies are extremely diversified among patients, and display improvements with respect to the currently employed regimes. Interestingly, we prove that much of the variance in therapeutic response observed among patients is due to the individual differences in pharmacokinetics, rather than in pharmacodynamics.
VIRULENCE AND ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE GENES OF Escherichia coli IN READY TO EAT SANDWICHES IN SHARKIA GOVERNORATE

Ready to eat food has been associated with some epidemics of foodborne illness all over the world. This study was designed to evaluate the microbial quality of ready to eat (RTE) sandwiches in Sharkia Governorate with special reference to virulence and antibiotic resistance genes of Escherichia coli ( E. coli ). One hundred and eighty RTE sandwiches containing meat (shawerma, kofta, sausage and hawawshi), chicken (chicken shawerma, pane, shish tawook, grilled chicken) and fish (grilled Tilapia nilotica, grilled Mugel cephalus , fried shrimp and fried fillet), fifteen of each were randomly collected from restaurants in Sharkia Governorate. Bacteriological examination revealed that the mean values of aerobic plate count (APC) ranged from 1.23×10 4 to 8.4×10 5 CFU/g and of total coliform count indicated by most probable number (MPN/g) ranged from 0.09×10 2 to 6.95×10 2 . E. coli percentages ranged from 6.7% to 26.7%. Serotyping of E. coli strains revealed five serotypes (O 153 : H 2 , O 78 , O 127 : H 6 , O 91 : H 21 and O 26 : H 11 ) by different percentages, O 26 : H 11 was the most common one (31.6%) and O 153 : H 2 was the lowest one (5.3%). All recorded isolates showed 100% antibiotic resistant to both erythromycin and amoxicillin – clavulanic acid. It was further found that eae A gene present in all isolated serotypes except O 153 : H 2 while Shiga toxin ( Stx 1 and Stx 2) were not detected at all, also found that resistant E. coli isolates to amoxicillin-clavulanic acid and erythromycin possessed bla TEM , mph A resistance genes (100%). Current results point to that RTE sandwiches in Sharkia Governorate are potential vehicles of antimicrobial-resistant E. coli among other possible foodborne pathogens with public health significance. Key words: ready-to-eat; aerobic plate count; E. coli ; coliform; resistance genes
Present Research on the Flipped Classroom and Potential Tools for the EFL Classroom

ABSTRACT The flipped classroom can support the implementation of a communicative, student-centered learning environment in the English as a foreign language classroom. Unfortunately, there is little research which supports the incorporation of flipped learning in the English as a foreign language classroom. Numerous studies have focused on flipped learning and other subject areas, but more research needs to be done on the English as a foreign language classroom. With this in mind, there are many effective tools available to enable teachers to create a communicative, English as a foreign language learning environment. Even though technology is constantly changing, the tools presented here will give teachers an idea of how to incorporate and use technology when developing an active, communicative learning environment.
Stylebook for the Tübingen Partially Parsed Corpus of Written German (TüPP-D/Z)

The stylebook at hand is a guide to the shallow annotation structure of the Tubingen Partially Parsed Corpus of Written German (TuPP-D/Z). The annotation is performed automatically by the partial parser KaRoPars (Kaskadierter Robuster Parser, i.e. Cascaded Robust Parser). This stylebook focuses on the description of the layers of chunks, topological fields and clauses, which are part of the KaRoPars output. The methodology of the annotation process is only mentioned in those cases in which it has an impact on the annotation structure. Example sentences are taken from real language data, but are simplified where necessary. This stylebook is an updated version of Muller (2002). The actual encoding of the linguistic phenomena in the corpus is described in the Markup Manual for TuPP-D/Z (see Ule (2004)).
Hierarchical Learning Systems Robotic Control Using Hierarchical Genetic Programming

In this thesis, we study the use of hierarchical genetic programming techniques to evolve robotic controllers for a simulated Khepera miniature robot. We study GP chromosome representation methods of linear-genome and tree-based and HGP techniques of Automatically Defined Functions, Module Acquisition, and Adaptive Representation. We train robotic controllers in the tasks of obstacle avoidance, wall following, and light avoidance. Our results enable us to compare and contrast the five studied representation methods and to provide suggestions for their improvement.
Highlighting marital HIV risk and promoting premarital VCT in Nyanza Province, Kenya

2008 This publication is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the President " s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of Cooperative Agreement No. HRN-A-00-98-00012-00. The contents are the responsibility of the FRONTIERS Program and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. Any part of this publication may be reproduced without permission for limited distribution provided it is distributed without charge and the Population Council is acknowledged as the source. The Population Council would appreciate receiving a copy of any materials in which the text is used. Married adolescent girls form a large segment of Kenyan youth, yet they are largely overlooked by researchers and programmers, as many programs focus on the prevention of STI/HIV and unwanted pregnancies for unmarried youth. There is the widespread perception that marriage is protective against HIV, yet evidence is increasing that girls who are married are much more likely to be infected with HIV than unmarried sexually active girls. An HIV prevalence study in Kisumu, Kenya found that married girls age 15-19 had higher rates of HIV infection when compared to unmarried girls (Glynn et al, 2001). " Highlighting Marital HIV Risk and Promoting Premarital VCT in Nyanza, Kenya " is a project of the Population Council, in collaboration with PATH and Kendu Adventist Hospital. Its specific objectives are: 1) to design and implement educational strategies to raise awareness of the risks of HIV and early marriage; 2) to promote voluntary counseling and testing for couples; and 3) to support and empower newly married girls through community-based clubs. The program was implemented in Rachuonyo and Homa Bay Districts in Nyanza Province, Kenya. The strategies to address HIV risk among married adolescent girls included: an education campaign to sensitize communities, families and young people that marriage is not protective of HIV; promotion of premarital VCT services for young couples including referral and linkage with existing services and subsidies for associated costs; and support groups for married girls. The specific achievements over two years of the intervention included: Magnet Theatre: Fourteen theatre groups facilitated Magnet Theatre activities reaching over 20,500 males and 17,300 females, through 47,260 contacts. Messages conveyed during performances related to the HIV risk associated with marriage, fidelity, and the importance of premarital/couples VCT. Radio: Radio spots were aired on Radio …
Software design using reusable algorithm abstractions

The work presented is concerned with partial automation of the design phase of software development, using a new type of design abstraction: task-oriented abstract algorithms. Task-oriented algorithm skeletons are free of data structure implementation details and restrictions. Using these abstract algorithms, software modules can be designed by a process of selecting appropriate abstract algorithms, specializing them to the particular situation, and then adding implementation details for data structures and subtasks. Recording this process represents the history of the design, providing a modifiable design document. >
NYU's Chinese ACE 2005 EDR System Description Can Global Re-Ranking and Semantic Role Labeling help Chinese EDR?

In this report we present the overall architecture of the NYU Chinese ACE 2005 EDR (Entity Detection and Recognition) system, focussing mainly on mention detection. Central to our research is the idea that the performance of analyzers which come early in the pipeline and use primarily local knowledge, such as name and nominal phrase recognition, can be significantly improved by the more global knowledge of later stages. We use an N-Best approach to generate multiple name hypotheses, and apply parsing, chunking and list matching to generate multiple nominal hypotheses. Then these multiple mention hypotheses are re-scored using the global information of coreference, relations and events, as well as the selectional preferences of semantic roles. In addition, we briefly describe our attempts at re-scoring coreference results with relation and event information, and the use of semi-supervised learning techniques to extend the training data.
Too Little or Too Much: The Effect of Feedback on Risk Assessment in a Missile Defense Task

Operators must often assess risk and take actions in proportion to that risk. This is not an inherently easy task and based on previous experiments, visualization aids may not be the entire solution to aiding operators. This experiment explored the impact of feedback paradigms on performance in a national missile defense (NMD) task. Participants had extensive practice with one of three types of feedback styles: averaged results after a set of scenarios, constant feedback after every scenario, or constant feedback with forced reflection. This study has three main contributions to decision-making research. 1) Although the trust in automation literature shows that averaged feedback increases understanding of the relative frequency of errors, this NMD task showed that constant feedback is more effective than averaged feedback. 2) Participant performance was still improving after three sessions, suggesting the need for more intense training. 3) NMD provides a concrete domain with viable metrics for investigating the perception of risk and uncertainty.
Constructive alignment for introductory programming

This thesis discusses the application of constructive alignment with portfolio assessment to the teaching of introductory programming. The goal of the work aimed to create a positive, student-centred, teaching and learning environment that encouraged, and rewarded, students to focus on deep approaches to learning. Learning to program has been found to be very challenging. Work in this thesis investigated ways to improve student learning outcomes in introductory programming units taught at the university level. It discusses improvements in the teaching and learning environment that resulted from applying the principles of constructive alignment, including the application of constructive learning theories, aligned curriculum, and open assessment practices. The thesis presents a systematic literature review of existing applications of constructive alignment, and argues for the need to explore approaches that aim to capture the integrated nature of the original work. It argues that this can only be achieved through adjustments to delivery and assessment practices, and proposes a set of guiding principles that can be used to create the desired learning environment. A model of constructive alignment is presented, which encompasses the proposed principles and provides processes and guidelines for its implementation. The practicality of the resulting approach is demonstrated through the description of two programming unit exemplars. Within this context, a concept-based, procedures-first, approach to introductory programming is also proposed, along with a range of supporting tools and resources. This approach provides students with a solid understanding of programming concepts, and experiences with a range of programming languages and paradigms, by the end of their first year of university study. Analysis of the exemplar units, and the resulting student learning outcomes, demonstrates the positive potential for learning environments created using the proposed approach. The resulting learning environment supports a wide range of student capabilities, rewards students for deeply engaging with unit material, and encourages them to use their imagination and creativity. Using this approach, teaching staff are consistently astounded by the quality of work students are able to achieve. While the exemplars applied the model to introductory programming, the discussion illustrates how the model can be applied to a wider range of subject areas.
Cause-Specific Risk Factors of Death in Individuals with Diabetes: A Competing Risks Modeling

Background Diabetes is on the rise worldwide. Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the risk factors of various causes of death in people with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Methods In this cohort study on 2638 people with T2D, we applied cause-specific and sub-distribution hazards models to assess the impact of various factors on the risk of death. Moreover, we plotted a cumulative incidence curve to summarize cumulative failure rates over time. Results About 75% of individuals with T2D died from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cerebrovascular accidents (CVA). Death from CVD was associated with the increased risk of hypertension (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.83, 95% CI: 1.37 - 2.46), hypercholesterolemia (HR = 1.58, 95% CI: 1.17 - 2.14), and diabetes duration. The risk of death from CVA was related to hypertension (HR = 2.76, 95% CI: 1.67 - 4.55) and hyperglycemia (HR = 4.34, 95% CI: 1.75 - 10.79). The CVA risk in patients with diabetes duration of 10 - 20 years was higher than the risk in patients with diabetes duration > 20 years (diabetes duration of ≤ 10 years as the reference category). Diabetes duration of longer than 20 years was associated with a higher risk of death from cancer (HR = 2.65, 95% CI: 1.05 - 6.68). The risk of death from foot infection and diabetic nephropathy increased in patients with longer diabetes duration after adjustment for sex, age, and body mass index. Conclusions Regardless of the cause, death rates in people with T2D increase over time and risk factors have different impacts on death from each cause. This should be acknowledged in risk management in individuals with T2D.
Proactive Interference of Differently Ordered Tone Sequences with the Accuracy and Speed of Two-Tone Frequency Comparisons

Participants judged the direction of the frequency difference between a standard tone and a comparison tone separated by a silent interval and preceded by a series of three interfering tones. The frequencies of the interfering tones were all either lower/higher than (providing interference) or the same as (providing no interference) the standard-tone frequency. When providing interference, the interfering tones were further ordered either randomly or so that they formed melodically ascending/ descending sequences toward the standard-tone frequency. Irrespective of the order of the interfering tones, the judgments were more accurate when the interfering tones and the comparison tone deviated in frequency in the opposite, rather than the same, direction from the standard tone. Reaction times of these judgments were in line with the data based on the judgment accuracy. The results suggest that the representations of individual interfering tones, and not of anticipations extrapolated from them as a compound, were involved in proactive interference with frequency-comparison performance.
Teaching smarter: how mining ICT data can inform and improve learning and teaching practice

The trend to greater adoption of online learning in higher education institutions means an increased opportunity for instructors and administrators to monitor student activity and interaction with the course content and peers. This paper demonstrates how the analysis of data captured from various IT systems could be used to inform decision making process for university management and administration. It does so by providing details of a large research project designed to identify the range of applications for LMS derived data for informing strategic decision makers and teaching staff. The visualisation of online student engagement/effort is shown to afford instructors with early opportunities for providing additional student learning assistance and intervention ‐ when and where it is required. The capacity to establish early indicators of ‘at-risk’ students provides timely opportunities for instructors to re-direct or add resources to facilitate progression towards optimal patterns of learning behaviour. The project findings provide new insights into student learning that complement the existing array of evaluative methodologies, including formal evaluations of teaching. Thus the project provides a platform for further investigation into new suites of diagnostic tools that can, in turn, provide new opportunities to inform continuous, sustained improvement of pedagogical practice.
Response Assessment with MRI after Chemoradiotherapy in Rectal Cancer: Current Evidences

Baseline magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become the primary staging modality for surgical plans and stratification of patient populations for more efficient neoadjuvant treatment. Patients who exhibit a complete response to chemoradiotherapy (CRT) may achieve excellent local tumor control and better quality of life with organ-preserving treatments such as local excision or even watch-and-wait management. Therefore, the evaluation of tumor response is a key factor for determining the appropriate treatment following CRT. Although post-CRT MRI is generally accepted as the first-choice method for evaluating treatment response after CRT, its application in the clinical decision process is not fully validated. In this review, we will discuss various oncologic treatment options from radical surgical technique to organ-preservation strategies for achieving better cancer control and improved quality of life following CRT. In addition, the current status of post-CRT MRI in restaging rectal cancer as well as the main imaging features that should be evaluated for treatment planning will also be described for the tailored treatment.
CEP290 myosin-tail homology domain is essential for protein confinement between inner and outer segments in photoreceptors

Mutations in CEP290 cause various ciliopathies involving retinal degeneration. CEP290 proteins localize to the ciliary transition zone and are thought to act as a gatekeeper that controls ciliary protein trafficking. However, precise roles of CEP290 in photoreceptors and pathomechanisms of retinal degeneration in CEP290-associated ciliopathies are not sufficiently understood. Using Cep290 conditional mutant mice, in which the C-terminal myosin-tail homology domain is disrupted after the connecting cilium is assembled, we show that CEP290, more specifically the myosin-tail homology domain of CEP290, is essential for protein confinement between the inner and the outer segments. Inner segment plasma membrane proteins including STX3, SNAP25, and IMPG2 rapidly accumulate in the outer segment upon disruption of the myosin-tail homology domain. In contrast, localization of endomembrane proteins is not altered. Trafficking and confinement of most outer segment-resident proteins appear to be unaffected or only minimally affected in this mouse model. One notable exception is RHO, which exhibits severe mislocalization to inner segments from the initial stage of degeneration. Similar mislocalization phenotypes were observed in rd16 mice. These results suggest that failure of protein confinement at the connecting cilium and consequent accumulation of inner segment membrane proteins in the outer segment combined with insufficient RHO delivery is part of the disease mechanisms that cause retinal degeneration in CEP290-associated ciliopathies. Our study provides insights into the pathomechanisms of retinal degenerations associated with compromised ciliary gates.
Use of Low-Cost Pest Exclusion Net to Control Tuta absoluta Infestation and Boost the Yield of Tomato in Surkhet and Dang Districts of Nepal

Low cost pest exclusion nets (PENs) of 0.4 mm mesh sizes was evaluated to determine their efficacy in reducing Tuta absoluta infestation and enhancing yields of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Miller) at Dang and Surkhet of Nepal, from December, 2016 to June, 2017 at field production levels. The PENs efficiency was compared with no net (control) in a randomized complete block design with 14 replications. Results showed the lower tomato leaf miner (Tuta absoluta) infestation (P<0.05) with higher yield (P<0.05) on tomato grown under PENs with high incomes. The results revealed that the farmers can adopt the use of PENs for pest management in tomato production to easily control the invasive pest of tomato and obtain the higher yield. Hence, farmers can use low cost pest exclusion nets to control the invasive insects of tomato.