Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia in patients over 70 years of age

Treatment options for patients with trigeminal neuralgia (TN) include pharmacotherapy, peripheral and gasserian ganglion-level procedures, microvascular decompression (MVD), and stereotactic radiosurgery. It is generally agreed that MVD provides the longest duration of pain relief while preserving facial sensation.1,2⇓ In experienced hands, MVD can be performed with low morbidity and mortality.1 Most authors would offer MVD to young patients with TN. However, many consider MVD inappropriate in the treatment of elderly patients because of suspected high morbidity and mortality rates in this age group. Few authors advocate MVD for the treatment of elderly patients with TN.3 All patients with TN referred to our unit in the 1990s had magnetic resonance tomoangiography (MRTA) to show the relationship of the affected trigeminal nerve root to adjacent blood vessels.4 Subject to satisfactory anesthetic assessment, MVD is offered as …
Analyzing the Performance of Cloudflare ’ s Anycast CDN , a Case Study

Anycast is a network routing mechanism which is supposed to route traffic to the topologically nearest server out of a group of potential servers announcing the same IP address, and is widely used for its DDoS mitigation and increase of service availability and network performance. It is an operationally simpler substitute for the relatively complex approach of DNS-based redirection, but is far less predictable in terms of routing. The consequences of its use of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and best practices with regard to its configuration have been studied to a certain extent, but the fact that anycast is very situational and unpredictable still causes the need for anycast structures to be analyzed independently. This paper serves as a case study of anycast and will focus on Cloudflare. Cloudflare is a US company which redistributes their client websites and data via their content delivery network (CDN), and they use anycast to route requests to their nearest server site in this network. This makes anycast an essential part of their business, and raises the importance of its analysis. In this paper, Cloudflare’s anycast performance is analyzed, and a judgment on the optimality of their anycast deployment is based on this analysis. The RIPE Atlas network analysis platform is used to gather latency measurements, after which these are processed using the geolocation algorithm iGreedy, as proposed by Cicalese et al. The resulting Cloudflare datacenter locations are used to determine to which extent requesters are served by the optimal datacenter. The conclusion to this is positive: anycast consistently manages to route approximately nine out of ten requests to the optimal Cloudflare datacenter.
HIV risk behaviour of older persons.

BACKGROUND This study investigated social and psychological determinants of preventive behaviour in HIV-relevant situations. METHODS Using computer-assisted telephone survey methodology, 2275 male and female were interviewed about their sexual habits. RESULTS For the first time in Switzerland, data concerning HIV-relevant protection as well as their determinants were systematically collected also from persons older than 45. This age group (n=834) showed an increased risk with regard to HIV-relevant sexual contacts. CONCLUSIONS The present findings call for more adequate monitoring of sexual behaviour of people older than 40 and suggest the development and implementation of respective age-specific prevention measures.
Iterative-Interpolated DFT for Synchrophasor Estimation: A Single Algorithm for P- and M-Class Compliant PMUs

We present a single synchrophasor estimation (SE) algorithm that is simultaneously compliant with both P and M phasor measurement unit (PMU) performance classes. The method, called iterative-interpolated discrete Fourier transform (i-IpDFT), iteratively estimates and compensates the effects of the spectral interference produced by both a generic interfering tone, harmonic or interharmonic, and the negative image of the fundamental tone. We define the three-point i-IpDFT technique for cosine and Hanning window functions and we propose a procedure to select the i-IpDFT parameters. We assess the performance of the i-IpDFT with respect to all the operating conditions defined in the IEEE Std. C37.118 for P- and M-class PMUs. We demonstrate that the proposed SE method is simultaneously compliant with all the accuracy requirements of both PMU performance classes.
A Comparison of Parametric Versus Permutation Methods with Applications to General and Temporal Microarray Gene Expression Data

MOTIVATION In analyses of microarray data with a design of different biological conditions, ranking genes by their differential 'importance' is often desired so that biologists can focus research on a small subset of genes that are most likely related to the experiment conditions. Permutation methods are often recommended and used, in place of their parametric counterparts, due to the small sample sizes of microarray experiments and possible non-normality of the data. The recommendations, however, are based on classical knowledge in the hypothesis test setting. RESULTS We explore the relationship between hypothesis testing and gene ranking. We indicate that the permutation method does not provide a metric for the distance between two underlying distributions. In our simulation studies permutation methods tend to be equally or less accurate than parametric methods in ranking genes. This is partially due to the discreteness of the permutation distributions, as well as the non-metric property. In data analysis the variability in ranking genes can be assessed by bootstrap. It turns out that the variability is much lower for permutation than parametric methods, which agrees with the known robustness of permutation methods to individual outliers in the data.
Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 Present in Radish Sprouts

ABSTRACT Using cultivation, immunofluorescence microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy, we demonstrated the presence of viable enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 not only on the outer surfaces but also in the inner tissues and stomata of cotyledons of radish sprouts grown from seeds experimentally contaminated with the bacterium. HgCl2 treatment of the outer surface of the hypocotyl did not kill the contaminating bacteria, which emphasized the importance of either using seeds free from E. coli O157:H7 in the production of radish sprouts or heating the sprouts before they are eaten.
Small-footprint wideband 94GHz rectifier for swarm micro-robotics

A very small footprint rectifier designed to support the micro-robotic applications is proposed and presented in this paper. The frequency of 94GHz has been selected as the best tradeoff between receiving antenna size and available transmitter power. To comply with the swarm micro-robotic requirements in which every part should be mass-producible and little sensitive to fabrication tolerance, a wideband planar rectenna using a single layer of metallization has been designed. The rectifier prototype exhibits a maximum efficiency of 37.7% at 90GHz measured at 3dBm input power and a half efficiency bandwidth of 22%.
Objective and subjective memory impairment in pregnancy

SYNOPSIS Pregnant subjects rated their memories as worse than normal and their ratings differed significantly from controls. Explicit memory tested by both recognition and recall was unimpaired. In contrast, implicit memory was significantly impaired in primigravidae. Impairment in implicit memory correlated with the subjective memory ratings. The dissociation of explicit and implicit memory is discussed.
NavEx: Providing Navigation Support for Adaptive Browsing of Annotated Code Examples

This paper presents NavEx, an adaptive environment for accessing interactive programming examples. NavEx implements a specific kind of adaptive navigation support known as adaptive annotation. The classroom study of NavEx confirmed that adaptive navigation support can visibly increase student motivation to work with non-mandatory educational content. NavEx boosted the overall amount of work and the average length of a session. In addition, various features of NavEx were highly regarded by the students.
The cost of cancer: a retrospective analysis of the financial impact of cancer on young adults

Young adult cancer survivors (YAs) are confronted with immense financial challenges in the wake of their treatment. Medical bills and loss of savings may cause YAs to forgo recommended medications or follow‐up appointments. Young survivors with financial concerns also report depression, stress and anxiety. The Samfund is a national nonprofit organization that provides financial support to YAs post‐treatment. To quantify the financial burden of cancer in YAs, a retrospective analysis was performed of data collected from Samfund grant applications of 334 YA cancer survivors. Grants were awarded between 2007 and 2013 and grant recipients were consented electronically in 2014 for retrospective data analysis. Recipients ranged from 19 to 39 years of age at the time of their grant applications. Descriptive statistics were calculated and compared to the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and U.S. census data on age‐matched peers. Financial indicators of YA cancer survivors are worse in many domains than those of age‐matched controls. Furthermore, YA survivors in their 30s report more perilous prefunding financial situations than younger grant recipients. Cancer has a devastating and age‐specific impact on the finances of YAs. Philanthropic grants from the cancer support community, in conjunction with healthcare policy reforms, have the potential to break the cycle of financial need and help YAs move forward with their lives after cancer treatment.
Rushing to Judgement: How do Laypeople Rate Caller Engagement in Thin-Slice Videos of Human-Machine Dialog?

We analyze the efficacy of a small crowd of naı̈ve human raters in rating engagement during human–machine dialog interactions. Each rater viewed multiple 10 second, thin-slice videos of non-native English speakers interacting with a computerassisted language learning (CALL) system and rated how engaged and disengaged those callers were while interacting with the automated agent. We observe how the crowd’s ratings compared to callers’ self ratings of engagement, and further study how the distribution of these rating assignments vary as a function of whether the automated system or the caller was speaking. Finally, we discuss the potential applications and pitfalls of such a crowdsourced paradigm in designing, developing and analyzing engagement-aware dialog systems.
Changes in cognitive control in pre-manifest Huntington's disease examined using pre-saccadic EEG potentials - a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND It is well-known that Huntington's disease (HD) affects saccadic processing. However, saccadic dysfunctions in HD may be seen as a result of dysfunctional processes occurring at the oculomotor level prior to the execution of saccades, i.e., at a pre-saccadic level. Virtually nothing is known about possible changes in pre-saccadic processes in HD. OBJECTIVE This study examines pre-saccadic processing in pre-manifest HD gene mutation carriers (pre-HDs) by using clinically available EEG measures. METHODS Error rates, pre-saccadic EEG potentials and saccade onset EEG potentials were measured in 14 pre-HDs and case-matched controls performing prosaccades and antisaccades in a longitudinal study over a 15-month period. RESULTS The results show that pre-saccadic potentials were changed in pre-HDs, relative to controls and also revealed changes across the 15-month longitudinal period. In particular, pre-saccadic ERP in pre-HDs were characterized by lower amplitudes and longer latencies, which revealed longitudinal changes. These changes were observed for anti-saccades, but not for pro-saccades. Overt saccadic trajectories (potentials) were not different to those in controls, showing that pre-saccadic processes are sensitive to subtle changes in fronto-striatal networks in pre-HDs. CONCLUSIONS Deficits in pre-saccadic processes prior the execution of an erroneous anti-saccade can be seen as an effect of dysfunctional cognitive control in HD. This may underlie saccadic abnormalities and hence a major phenotype of HD. Pre-saccadic EEG potentials preceding erroneous anti-saccades are sensitive to pre-manifest disease progression in HD.
On the evaluation of fairness for input queue switches

Packet switches are required to support quality of service (QoS), that is, the capability to differentiate packet servicing on a flow basis, ensuring switching objectives such as guaranteed throughput and bounded switching delays. The core of a packet switch is a switch fabric, which is typically available as a single chip or chip set. Currently, these chip sets do not support QoS features, such as required packet service rates. We develop a framework based on performance indicators for evaluating a packet switch with respect to fairness performance. In conjunction with a robust simulation environment, we analyze the performance of two well known core packet schedulers.
Toward an Agile Approach to Managing the Effect of Requirements on Software Architecture during Global Software Development

Requirement change management (RCM) is a critical activity during software development because poor RCM results in occurrence of defects, thereby resulting in software failure. To achieve RCM, efficient impact analysis is mandatory. A common repository is a good approach to maintain changed requirements, reusing and reducing effort. Thus, a better approach is needed to tailor knowledge for better change management of requirements and architecture during global software development (GSD). The objective of this research is to introduce an innovative approach for handling requirements and architecture changes simultaneously during global software development. The approach makes use of Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) and agile practices. Agile practices make our approach iterative, whereas CBR stores requirements and makes them reusable. Twin Peaks is our base model, meaning that requirements and architecture are handled simultaneously. For this research, grounded theory has been applied; similarly, interviews from domain experts were conducted. Interview and literature transcripts formed the basis of data collection in grounded theory. Physical saturation of theory has been achieved through a published case study and developed tool. Expert reviews and statistical analysis have been used for evaluation. The proposed approach resulted in effective change management of requirements and architecture simultaneously during global software development.
Comparison of Liaison N-tact PTH (Diasorin) and N-tact PTH SP IRMA (Diasorin) in hemodialyzed patients

In a recent report, Souberbielle et al. (1) showed good correlation (rs0.92; p-0.001) between intact parathyroid hormone (PTH) concentrations measured with the Allegro assay (Nichols Institute, San Juan Capistrano, CA, USA) and the Liaison assay (Diasorin, Saluggia, Italy) in 167 hemodialyzed patients. Using the equation y (Liaison)s0.79=(Allegro)q50.3 (ng/L), they calculated equivalent values between the assays and found that the 150–300 ng/L PTH levels recommended by the guidelines for management of renal osteodystrophy (2) might equate to 169–288 ng/L for the Liaison assay. A similar study was performed in our hospital on 80 hemodialyzed patients: we compared measurement of intact PTH using the new Liaison assay and the N-tact PTH immunoradiometric assay (IRMA; Diasorin, Saluggia, Italy) routinely used in our laboratory. Although the correlation was good (rs0.993; p-0.0001), the regression equation was y (Liaison)s1.21=(IRMA)q28.29 (ng/L), and a BlandAltman plot showed a mean difference of 68 ng/L between the two tests (Figure 1). When differences were plotted as percentages of the average, the mean difference was 33.8% for the whole group, with interquartile differences of 32.4%, 40.9%, 36.8% and 25.1%, respectively, for Q1–Q4. The K/DOQI Clinical Practice Guidelines for Bone Metabolism and Disease in Chronic Kidney Disease (2) suggest a therapeutic approach to bone disease in chronic kidney disease based on its specific type and on targets of intact PTH that should range between 150 and 300 ng/L. However, these guidelines, based on evidence derived from the Nichols Allegro manual IRMA intact PTH assay, do not indicate that the PTH targets are specific for this method. In our study, 22 patients were within the range 150–300 ng/L as measured using the N-tact Diasorin IRMA. For this subgroup, the Bland-Altman
Series-Parallel Bounds for the Two-Terminal Reliability Problem

The two-terminal reliability problem for communication networks with unreliable links is a computationally difficult problem. Upper and lower bounds can be efficiently computed using graph-theoretical techniques based on edge-packing. We present a new technique for improving these bounds via approximation by series-parallel graphs. We also present some computational results for comparison with the known edge-packing bounds. INFORMS Journal on Computing , ISSN 1091-9856, was published as ORSA Journal on Computing from 1989 to 1995 under ISSN 0899-1499.
Epigallocatechin gallate reduces human monocyte mobility and adhesion in vitro

Background and purpose: Monocytes/macrophages are an important population of immune inflammatory cells that have diverse effector functions in which their mobility and adhesion play a very relevant role. Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a major component of green tea, has been reported to have anti‐allergic and anti‐inflammatory activities, but its effects on monocytes remain to be determined. Here we investigated the effects of EGCG on the migration and adhesion of monocytes.
Approximating Retrieval Unit for Un-structured Querying in Relational Databases

In recent years, there has been a significant interest in enabling keyword search capability, which is un-structured querying, for relational databases. Existing approaches return a set of tuples joined together as a retrieval unit. However, the joined tuples possibly involve data of the irrelevant or lessinteresting attributes for query keywords when the keywords are matched in multiple relations. This paper proposes a method to approximate dependencies as a heuristic to select the best set of attributes as the retrieval unit of keyword search in relational databases. We also discuss the advantages of our method in
The cluster headache.

Within the group of vascular headaches there stands out a "particular variety of headache" 1 characterized by a severe throbbing periorbital pain frequently accompanied by lacrimation, conjunctival injection, and nasal congestion. The symptoms are unilateral, abrupt in onset, brief in duration, and appear consistently on the same side. Attacks recur often, usually daily, for a period of one or two months and then subside to return only after an interval of months or years, thus pursuing a time pattern which has suggested the descriptive term "cluster headache. " 2,3 The literature contains numerous accounts of this type of cephalgia, under a variety of terms including Sluder's headache, sphenopalatine neuralgia, 4 periodic migrainous neuralgia, 5 Harris's neuralgia, 6 ciliary neuralgia, 7 erythromelalgia of the head, 8 histamine cephalgia, 9 Horton's headache, autonomic facial cephalgia, 10 greater superficial petrosal neuralgia, 11 and "red migraine. " 12 Corresponding and divergent concepts of the nature, etiology,
The Development and Validation of the Arabic Scale of Mental Health (ASMH)

The objective of this research was to develop and validate the Arabic Scale of Mental Health (ASMH) as a generic screening measure and research tool for adults and adolescents. Several samples of both sexes were recruited (N = 3,619). Their ages ranged between 15 and 71 years. The scale has two equivalent versions: Arabic and English. The ASMH comprises 40 brief statements plus 10 filler items. Principal components analysis yielded six components labeled: satisfaction, self-confidence, optimism, enjoyment, meaningful life, and stability. Item-remainder correlations ranged between . 31 and . 79. Reliabilities in these samples indicated good internal consistency (alphas = .94 to .96) and temporal stability (7- to 10-day test-retest r = .84 to .94). The ASMH significantly and positively correlated with measures of happiness, satisfaction with life, hope, optimism, love of life, and self-actualization, from which one salient component was identified. Therefore, initial convergent and factorial validities were adequate. Male undergraduates obtained a higher mean score than did both their female counterparts and male employed workers, but the effect size was small. It was concluded that the ASMH has good psychometric characteristics in its Arabic version. The English version merits investigation in a cross-cultural study.
Detection of human respiratory syncytial virus genotype specific antibody responses in infants

Infection and reinfection of infants with human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) occur despite the presence of serum anti‐viral glycoprotein antibodies similar to those, which afford protection in animal models of infection. Antigenic variation of the viral glycoproteins between different genotypes of the virus which co‐circulate in the population may contribute to the ability of the virus to escape from antibody‐mediated protection. In this study, we have investigated whether human infants infected with HRSV produced antibody responses recognising the antigenic differences between different contemporary genotypes of virus. Acute and convalescent sera from 26 infants were analysed for antibody responses to the glycoproteins of the virus isolated from their respiratory tract and to representative viruses of homologous and heterologous genotypes. All infants developed antibodies with similar reactivity for viruses of all contemporary isolates and genotypes when measured in an immunofluorescence assay against unfixed virus infected cells. However, when antibody responses to the individual glycoproteins were measured in a surace plasmon resonance (SPR) assay, although all infants developed genotype cross‐reactive antibodies to the F glycoprotein, anti‐G antibodies were detectable in only half of the infants and in all cases these were genotype specific. Possession of no or only genotype specific antibodies to the G glycoprotein may contribute to the susceptibility of infants to reinfection. In both assays, reactivity of anti‐glycoprotein antibodies with the sub‐group A archetypal strain, A2, was markedly lower than with any contemporary virus tested indicating that this strain alone is unsuitable for accurate assessment of infant antibody responses. J. Med. Virol. 74:492–498, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.