Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
P4-17-05: Brain Metastasis Free Survival (BMFS) Differs between Breast Cancer Subtypes.

BACKGROUND Brain metastases (BM) are frequently diagnosed in patients (pts) with Her2-positive metastatic breast cancer (BC); a rising incidence was also reported in triple-negative disease. We hypothesized that pts with triple-negative or Her2-positive tumours had shorter BMFS as compared to other BC subtypes. Therefore, we aimed to compare BMFS in pts with Her2-positive, estrogen receptor (ER) positive and triple-negative BC treated at the Medical University of Vienna from 1999–2009. In Her2-positive tumours, we further investigated the influence of ER co-expression on BMFS, as Her2-positive / ER-positive tumours were reported to express less aggressive biological properties. METHODS BMFS was defined as primary study endpoint and measured as the interval from diagnosis of metastatic BC until diagnosis of BM. A total of 168 pts were identified from a breast cancer database. 34 pts were excluded from this analysis as brain was the first site of disease progression; hence complete datasets from 134 pts were available (69 Her2-positive; 33 triple-negative; 32 ER-positive). Her2 status was analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and reanalyzed by FISH if a score of 2+ was gained. ER was analyzed by IHC; ER negative tumours were defined by a cut-off value of RESULTS Median BMFS in triple-negative pts was 14 months (m) (95% CI 12.17−15.83), as compared to 25 m (95% CI 13.37−36.62) in Her2-positive (p=0.001) and 35 m (95% CI 19.79−50.22) in ER-positive pts (p In Her2-positive pts, prior trastuzumab treatment for metastatic disease prolonged median BMFS (29 vs. 11 m; p ER-expression (HR 2.03; 95%CI 1.22−3.36; p CONCLUSIONS BMFS in triple-negative disease is significantly shorter as compared to Her2-positive or ER-positive tumours, mirroring the aggressiveness of this breast cancer subtype. Probably due to improved systemic disease control, trastuzumab significantly prolonged BMFS in Her2-positive pts. Longer BMFS in ER/Her2 co-positive disease reflects a less aggressive subtype of Her2-positive breast cancer which is less likely to benefit from strategies of BM screening or prevention. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2011;71(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P4-17-05.
Positive feedback trading strategies: evidencias sobre los principales mercados de capitales

El pilar central de la Teoria Moderna en Finanzas esta en plena efervescencia. La aproximacion basada en modelos de equilibrio con individuos racionales esta siendo engullida por un acercamiento mas ductil basado en modelos dinamicos con heterogeneos participantes. Los modelos de especulacion racional consideran un entorno que amortigua cualquier fluctuacion ocasionada por agentes de interferencia o noise traders. Este escenario no es necesariamente cierto si estos agentes siguen positive feedback trading strategies. Estrategias que inducen autocorrelacion en los retornos e incrementan la volatilidad en los mercados. Si un elevado numero de participantes abrazase este tipo de estrategias, los precios de los activos financieros podrian desviarse persistente y sustancialmente de sus fundamentales. El modelo es consistente con numerosas observaciones empiricas tales como la correlacion en retornos, exceso de volatilidad, inercia en precios sobre breves horizontes temporales y reversion a la media en el largo plazo.
Studies in aerosol drug formulation, analysis, and modeling

A recently mandated change in the use of pharmaceutical propellants spurred the development and reevaluation of aerosolized pharmaceuticals. Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) propellants were commonly used in pressurized metered dose inhalers (MDIs), but were unfortunately linked to the depletion of the ozone layer. As such, a search for new propellants was initiated and ultimately resulted in the implementation of hydrofluoroalkane (HFA) propellants in MDIs. These HFA propellants however demonstrated significantly different properties than CFCs and necessitated a considerable amount of reformulation efforts. Not only did HFAs demonstrate different physiochemical properties, but in some cases these differences necessitated reengineering of the delivery device. Unfortunately HFA propellants are considered greenhouse gasses, albeit to a lesser degree than CFCs, so the development of alternate delivery methods has been ongoing. One delivery method that has received significant attention and resources is dry powder inhalers (DPIs). DPIs are a propellant-free alternative to aerosolized drug delivery, and demonstrate some advantages and disadvantages compared to the use of MDIs and nebulizers. In addition to the modernization of pharmaceutical agents, excipients, and delivery devices, technological advances have allowed for different and/or improved characterization of pharmaceutical aerosols. Particle size characteristics of aerosols are the primary physical measure examined and are relevant to ensure proper and reproducible drug delivery to the lung. Likewise, chemical analysis of the pharmaceutical
Crossing Borders within the ABC Automation, Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science

In this paper a special immigrative multicriteria genetic algorithm (SIGA) will be introduced. It is based on the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA) II, published 2000 by Deb. The SIGA has been adapted for parameter optimization of SVM to classify sleep-stages. Therefore it includes all values of the confusion matrix for searching fronts. The confusion matrix represents the number of concordances and disconcordances between the visually rated and the automatically generated labels of sleep stages. We separate sleep in maximum eight stages. That means the confusion matrix has up to 64 elements, which are used as criteria. Further criteria are the total correctly classified data in percent, the diagonal and the geometrical mean of the confusion matrix and the accuracy of the class with the lowest number of concordances. Furthermore the algorithm implements the principle of immigration. How the SIGA influence the classification quality will be demonstrated in this paper. In different experiments with measured, but also with synthetic sleep data, the increase of classification quality of SVM by using the SIGA approach for parameter optimization will be shown.
Traditional cultural practices of imparting sex education and the fight against HIV/AIDS: The case of initiation ceremonies for girls in Zambia

The Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) have become a major health problem in Zambia. Because of the threat HIV/AIDS poses to the nation the government of Zambia embarked on a public health campaign aimed at combating the scourge. However so far this campaign has predominantly been conducted through modern channels of information communication. The overall objective of this study was to explore the role one particular traditional channel of sex information communication the initiation ceremony of girls could play in disseminating information to combat HIV/AIDS. Data were collected from five residential areas using systematic random sampling. Overall the study concludes that although there is no evidence to directly link initiation ceremonies with HIV/AIDS indirectly todays initiation ceremonies enhance the spread of HIV/AIDS. But it is encouraging to point out that given the demonstrated willingness of the majority of initiators to learn more about HIV/AIDS the identified inadequacies in initiation ceremonies can be removed so that this Channel is used effectively in the fight against the disease. (authors)
Histological changes of the rat liver after administration of imatinib mesylate:an experimental study

Objectives: This study aims to determine the histological changes of the liver of rats after administration of a low dose or a clinically relevant high dose of Imatinib mesylate for one month in comparison to control ones. Study setting and design: This experimental study was performed over a period of four months starting from the 10 march 2013 to the 10 July 2013 and was conducted on male Albino rats purchased from Animal Houses of both Mosul Medical College, and Veterinary College, University of Mosul, Mosul, Northern Iraq. Methods: The first experiment includes4045 days aged rats who administered orally daily dose of 75mg/Kg of imatinib mesylate (Glivec®; Novartis) purchased from IBN-SENA Teaching Hospital , Mosul and bought from some private pharmacies for 30 days with age matched control who administered distilled water. The second experiment includes 4045 days aged rats who administered daily dose of 200mg/Kg orally)with age matched control who administered distilled water . Liver of rats from each experimental group were obtained. The tissues were embedded in paraffin and stained with hematoxylin-eosin and periodic acid schiff stain. Results: The histological examination of the liver tissues of groups receiving imatinib at doses of 75 mg/kg or 200mg/kg on daily for 30 days duration showed different degrees of various histological changes of damage when compared with the control group . Male rats administered with 75 mg/kg of imatinib resulted moderate degree of several histological changes. The most striking feature is disruption in radial arrangement around central vein, sinusoidal dilatation, and hepatocytes with eosinophilic cytoplasm. Perivenular inflammatory cells, accumulation of inflammatory cells. Loss of cellular outline , and loss of euchromatin of the hepatocytes . Light microscopic examination of sections obtained from liver tissues of groups receiving imatinib at dose of 200mg/kg revealed similar changes, however , these changes were more pronounced in comparison to those in low dose group. Conclusion: Imatinib causes hepatotoxicity even in low dose group (75mg/kg, however, it has a dose dependant effect but to some extent. Appropriate protective measures must be applied with anticancer treatment for improving liver function.
Effects of Vitamins C and E on Serum Resistin, Hs-CRP, Lipid Profile and Insulin Levels in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

Background and Objective : Vitamins C and E are the two main antioxidants involved in prevention of type 2 diabetes, by reducing oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of vitamins C and E supplementation independently, on serum levels of insulin, high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and resistin in people with type 2 diabetes. Methods : In this study, 38 patients with type 2 diabetes (17 men and 21 women) received 1,000 mg/day vitamin C, and 40 patients with type 2 diabetes (21 men and 19 women) received 400 IU/day vitamin E orally. Fasting blood glucose and lipid profile were measured using enzymatic method. Hs-CRP was measured by immunoturbidimetric method, and serum insulin and resistin levels were measured by ELISA. Results : total cholesterol, triglycerides, hs-CRP, insulin and resistin significantly were reduced after vitamin C supplementation (P<0.001). Moreover, the level of total cholesterol (P =0.018), low-density lipoprotein, triglycerides and hs-CRP significantly changed after vitamin E supplementation (P=0.001). Conclusion : The daily intake of 1,000 mg of vitamin C and 400 IU of vitamin E may be useful in reducing diabetic complications by decreasing serum levels of hs-CRP and lipid profile in people with type 2 diabetes.
Dynamic Branch Predictor Evaluation on Simultaneous Multithreading Processor

Simultaneous multithreading(SMT)can issue and execute multiple instructions from several independent thread each cycle.It greatly increases the throughput of the superscalar processors,but the simultaneous execution of multiple threads also brings some questions,such as the conflicts of hardware resource sharing.Sharing branch predic- tion hardware among multiple threads is one of the questions,this scheme may have great effect on branch prediction accuracy.It is very important to study the effect of branch resolving policies on the performance of SMT processors, because it can give us some advice on SMT processor design.By using SMT processor simulator,this paper tevaluated several famous branch prediction schemes on a SMT architecture that each thread executes independent applications, analyzed the effect of branch prediction schemes on branch prediction accuracy and overall performance of the processor on both single thread and multithread environment.We concluded that.on such a SMT processor,each thread having its own branch predictor is a good candidate,and because each predictor can be small and simple,it also adds little ad- ditional hardware cost.
Metabolic Overlap in Environmentally Diverse Microbial Communities

The majority of microbial communities consist of hundreds to thousands of species, creating a massive network of organisms competing for available resources within an ecosystem. In natural microbial communities it appears that many microbial species have highly redundant metabolisms and seemingly are capable of utilizing the same substrates. This is paradoxical, as theory indicates that species requiring a common resource should outcompete one another. To better understand why microbial species can co-exist, we developed Metabolic Overlap (MO) as a new metric to survey the functional redundancy of microbial communities at the genome scale across a wide variety of ecosystems. Using metagenome-assembled genomes, we surveyed over 1200 studies across ten ecosystem types. We found the highest MO in extreme (i.e., low pH/high temperature) and aquatic environments, while the lowest MO was observed in communities associated with animal hosts, or the built/engineered environment. In addition, different metabolism subcategories were explored for their degree of metabolic overlap. For instance, overlap in nitrogen metabolism was among the lowest in Animal and Engineered ecosystems, while the most was in species from the Built environment. Together, we present a metric that utilizes whole genome information to explore overlapping niches of microbes. This provides a detailed picture of potential metabolic competition and cooperation between species present in an ecosystem, indicates the main substrate types sustaining the community and serves as a valuable tool to generate hypotheses for future research.
Autoimmune endocrinopathies 3 Islet cell autoimmunity

Diabetes has been known to man for several thousands of years. The understanding of different forms of diabetes was recognized late last century. After the discovery of insulin in 1921 it took an additional 30 years until two major forms of diabetes were discernible. The classification used since the 1970s suggests that there are two major forms of diabetes. The most prevalent form is non-insulindependent diabetes (NIDDM) which represents 80-90% of all patients with diabetes. The less common form of diabetes is IDDM which primarily develops in children or teenagers (one out of three patients develop the disease before 15 years of age). The next risk group is between 15 and 34 years of age (one out of three patients). The remaining group of patients develop IDDM at an older age. In a high-risk population such as that of the Scandinavian countries, about 1 % of newborns will develop IDDM during their life-time [l]. The aetiology and pathogenesis of IDDM needs to be identified. Recent understanding of islet cell autoimmunity and IDDM based on epidemiological, molecular and immunological studies will be briefly reviewed.
Childhood Malignant Gliomas

Learning Objectives: After reading this article, the participant should be able to:1. Describe the clinical presentation and radiological evaluation of childhood malignant gliomas.2. Explain the surgical indications and resection of childhood malignant gliomas.3. Recall the role of adjuvant therapy and indications for treatment of childhood malignant gliomas.4. Explain the different adjuvant therapies (chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and others) in the treatment of childhood malignant gliomas.
Dynamic Dispatch Cluster Ensemble Approach for Mixed Attributes Dataset

− In recent time, data is growing binomially in almost all organizations in the world such as schools, hospitals, banks, which are usually of mixed attribute data values with numerical or categorical attribute data type. Several clustering systems with various clustering algorithms has been proposed to discover useful patterns that exist in such datasets, all adopting the same approach of splitting the dataset into two fragmented files and storing them on the storage device before subjecting them to clustering algorithms. This approach slows down the clustering process when there is large dataset. This paper presents a new dynamic dispatch cluster ensemble approach to clustering mixed attribute dataset based on ensemble technique where the attribute data type is automatically detected at run-time in place of outright splitting of the dataset into two subsets before clustering. The system utilized k means and Squeezer algorithms for clustering the various datasets. Object oriented design and Java programming language were used in the system development and implementation. The system was experimented on real life dataset obtained from UCL machine learning repository and results obtained were significantly different when compared to existing clustering systems. The process time was faster than the old systems because of the implicit and not explicit approach adopted in the system designs.
Performance evaluation of VoIP technology in an extended service set, in concordance with IEEE 802.11g

In this paper, we evaluate the performance in function of the metrics associated to Quality of Service [QoS] and Quality of user Experience [QoE] in an experimental way in the VoIP service for G.711 and G.729 codecs. This was performed over an extended service set based on Wi-Fi technology in concordance with IEEE 802.11g standard using embedded systems. QoS related metrics are obtained by using the intrusive traffic injection technique. In addition, we assessed the QoE using the MOSc [Mean Opinion Score conversational] analysis. The best results were obtained for G.729, reaching up to 25 simultaneous injections with optimal delay, jitter and packet loss values according to the ITU-T recommendation for VoIP. However, the G.711 codec presented a better throughput. On the other hand, QoE evaluation indicates a slight superiority of G.729 in the MOSc appreciation. Finally, we conclude that packet loss and delay are the most influential metrics in VoIP service degradation.
Determinants of Progression and Mortality in Alzheimers disease: A Systematic Review

Purpose Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) have been regarded as predictors of poor outcomes, and the use of neuroleptics as well, but with contradictory results. The objective of this article is to perform a systematic review of published works dealing with progression and survival in AD. Methods We searched articles aimed at determining the factors predicting faster cognitive decline and mortality in AD, published from January 1987 to April, 2018. We gave priority to prospective and retrospective cohorts analysing the influence of gender, NPS, neuropsychological predictors, co morbidities, and the use of neuroleptics/ antidepressants. The data-sources were 42 prospective cohorts including 24,711 patients; Hazard ratios/relative risks of mortality and faster cognitive decline were obtained for NPS and the use of psychotropic drugs. The risk of mortality for neuroleptics and ChEI was also obtained from 7 retrospective cohorts totalling 242,013 patients followed up. Results High levels of NPS were predictors of both mortality and faster cognitive decline Considered in isolation, agitation/aggression, hallucinations, and depression predicted mortality. However the results for apathy and psychosis/delusions varied across the studies. According to prospective cohort studies there is no clear evidence that neuroleptics increase mortality. The use of neuroleptics is associated with faster cognitive deterioration. Conventional neuroleptics for NPS did not result in lower mortality rates than the atypical ones. Conclusions The presence of NPS is associated with poor outcomes in AD such as mortality and greater cognitive decline. Atypical neuroleptics do not shorten survival but are associated with faster cognitive decline
The landscape of RET alterations from 56,970 adult patients with cancer: Clinical implications.

3106 Background: Activating receptor-tyrosine kinase rearranged during transfection ( RET) mutations and fusions have been recognized as potent drivers of oncogenesis. Recent identification of highly potent and selective RET inhibitors holds great promise in the management of RET-dependent tumors. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of RET alterations in pan-cancer adult malignancies. Methods: We analyzed 59,347 samples from 56,970 patients available from AACR Project GENIE (Cancer Discov. 2017) database for the prevalence of RET fusions, mutations, and copy number alterations in diverse cancer types. Results: A total of 1414 RET alterations were detected, including 91 fusions (6.4%), 1166 missense mutations (82.5%), 136 truncating mutations (9.6%), and 21 in-frame mutations (1.5%). RET fusions were observed in 0.15% of tumor samples and were most commonly identified in non-small cell lung cancer, thyroid cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, and gastric cancer (62.6%, 18.6%, 5.5%, 4.4%, 3.3% of identified RET fusions, respectively). RET fusions were significantly co-altered with MAPK3/ERK1 (p=0.045), SETD2 (p=1.36E-07 ), and EIF4E (p=0.045), while there was a negative association between RET fusions and EGFR (p=0.009634) , TP53 (p=0.02267), and KRAS (p=2.53E-05) alterations. Most common RET gene upstream partners were KIF5B, CCDC6, and NCOA4 (42.9%, 24.2%, 7.7% of identified RET fusions, respectively). RET missense mutations were found in 2.0% of tumor samples; 136 (11.7%) of identified missense mutations, including 8 RET gatekeeper V804M/L mutations, were characterized as likely oncogenic, 12 (1.0%) as likely benign, and 1018 (87.3%) as variants of unknown significance using OncoKB database. RET amplifications occurred in 1.5% of tested samples. Conclusions: While RET fusions represent extremely rare events in multiple cancers, RET missense mutations occur in 2% of malignancies. Most RET missense variants are described as variants of unknown significance, limiting the impact of precision oncology for the majority of patients with RET alterations. Further functional characterization of RET variants is warranted. MAPK pathway co-alterations in patents with RET fusions may present a strategy for future therapeutic combinations.