Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
La commission européenne face à l'efficacité et l'équité des systèmes éducatifs européens

Lorsque la Commission europeenne consacre une communication au Parlement et au Conseil a l’equite et a l’efficacite des systemes educatifs, les specialistes de l’analyse des politiques educatives ne peuvent que se rejouir et y voir un echo a leurs travaux (Crahay 2000, Demeuse, Baye, Straeten, Nicaise & Matoul 2005). Si cette communication merite, en raison de son sujet, tout l’interet des chercheurs et, de maniere generale, de tous les acteurs de l’ecole, elle ne rassure pas le lecteur attentif. Sous couvert d’un interet specifique et bien comprehensible pour la prescolarisation, elle traite de maniere plutot legere l’enseignement obligatoire et, de maniere beaucoup plus inquietante l’enseignement superieur. Cet article souligne les inquietudes et les questions qui subsistent a l’issue de cette lecture.
Co-culture with lung cancer A549 cells promotes the proliferation and migration of mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow

The initiation and progression of various types of tumors, such as lung neoplasms, are driven by a population of cells with stem cell properties and their microenvironment. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) in long-term in vitro culture may exhibit spontaneous changes in stem cell biological properties, including malignant transformations; however, the molecular mechanisms of this have not been fully elucidated. In the present study, a BM-MSC and lung cancer A549 cell co-culture system was utilized to investigate how the tumor microenvironment may spontaneously change the proliferation, migration and differentiation of BM-MSCs. It was demonstrated that the lung cancer A549 microenvironment is able to induce changes in the cell morphology, proliferation, karyotype, cytoskeleton and migration ability of BM-MSCs in vitro. Compared with the control group BM-MSCs, the expression of Ras, phosphorylated-extracellular regulated protein kinases, nuclear factor-κB, P62 and B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) proteins in groups of co-cultured BM-MSCs increased significantly (P<0.05) and the expression of P53, Bcl-2 associated X protein and caspase-3 protein decreased significantly (P<0.05). The mechanisms responsible for the changes observed in BM-MSCs may be related to abnormal expression of related genes in the ERK signaling pathway.
Effects of modality change on health‐related quality of life

Patients with end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) requiring renal replacement have impaired health‐related quality of life (HRQoL), and there is general consensus that HRQoL improves with successful transplant and evidence of improvement with frequent hemodialysis. This study reports changes in HRQoL associated with changes in treatment modality to daily hemodialysis (DHD) and transplant among patients requiring renal replacement. This cohort study had assessments at baseline and 6‐month following modality change. Subjects were nondiabetic individuals receiving conventional hemodialysis who (a) remained on conventional hemodialysis (n = 13), (b) changed to daily hemodialysis (DHD) (n = 10), or (c) received a living donor transplant (n = 20). Thirty‐four healthy controls were assessed once for comparison. HRQoL was measured using the Kidney Disease Quality of Life Instrument. The Physical Functioning and Physical Composite Scale scores were primary outcomes. Transplantation resulted in significant improvements in six of eight generic scales and the physical composite scale (PCS). Those changing to DHD had significant improvements in Physical Function and PCS scales. Those remaining on dialysis remained lower than controls on all scales except for Vitality; the transplant group remained lower than controls only on the Vitality and General Health scales. Transplant resulted in significant improvements in four of the seven disease‐specific scales (symptoms, effects, and burden of kidney disease, work). DHD resulted in improvements in the effects of kidney disease. Modality change to transplant results in significant improvement in HRQoL, achieving levels similar to controls. Change to daily hemodialysis improves only select HRQoL domains and remains low in disease‐specific domains.
A 20-ps Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) Implemented in Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with Automatic Temperature Correction

This paper presents an automatic temperature correction design for carry chain based time-to-digital converter (TDC) in field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The bin-by-bin calibrations under different temperatures are performed for both plain TDC and Wave Union TDC to characterize the influence of temperature variation on the delay time of carry chain. Accordingly, a simplified temperature correction scheme by using a dedicated correction channel to measure the coefficient and correct fine time result for all TDC channels is implemented and tested. This method shows only few picosecond errors for both simulation and measurement. With this correction approach, a TDC precision of 21 ps has been achieved in Cyclone II FPGA under a wide ambient temperature range from 0°C to 60°C. Several design key points are also described in this paper.
Content Based Spam E-mail Filtering

Currently, E-mail is one of the most important methods of communication. However, the increasing of spam e-mails causes traffic congestion, decreasing productivity, phishing, which has become a serious problem for our society. And the number of spam e-mail is increasing every year. Therefore, spam e-mail filtering is an important, meaningful and challenging topic. The aim of this research is to find an effective solution to filter possible spam e-mails. And as we know, in recent days, there are many techniques that spammers use to avoid spam-detection such as obfuscation techniques. In this case, the following proposed approach uses email content only to build keyword corpus, together with some text processing to handle obfuscation technique. The algorithm was evaluated using the CSDMC2010 SPAM corpus dataset that contained 4327 emails in the training dataset and 4292 emails in the testing dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has 92.8% accuracy.
Video Content Representation by Incremental Non-Negative Matrix Factorization

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) is a powerful decomposition tool which has been used in several content representation applications recently. However, there are some difficulties in implementing NMF in on-line video applications. This paper introduces an incremental NMF (INMF) without deviating from conventional NMF"s main objective function, which is minimizing the reconstruction error. The proposed algorithm is capable of modeling dynamic content of the video; thus controls contribution of the subsequent observations to the NMF representation properly. It is shown that the INMF preserves additive, parts-based representation capability of the NMF with a low computational load while offering dimension reduction. Experimental results are given to compare the reconstruction performances of the conventional and incremental NMF. In addition, video scene change detection and dynamic video content representation by INMF are investigated. Test results demonstrate that the INMF can be used as a powerful on-line factorization tool.
An Efficient Agglomerative Clustering Algorithm for Web Navigation Pattern Identification

Web log mining is analysis of web log files with web page sequences. Discovering user access patterns from web access are necessary for building adaptive web servers, to improve e-commerce, to carry out cross-marketing, for web personalization, to predict web access sequence etc. In this paper, a new agglomerative clustering technique is proposed to identify users with similar interest, and to determine the motivation for visiting a website. Using this approach, web usage mining is done through different stages namely data cleaning, preprocessing, pattern discovery and pattern analysis. Results are given to explain how this approach produces tight usage clusters than the existing web usage mining techniques. Rather than traditional distance based clustering, the similarity measure is considered during clustering process in order to reduce computational complexity. This paper also deals with the problem of assessing the quality of user session clusters and cluster validity is measured by using statistical test, which measures the distances of clusters distributions to infer their dissimilarity and distinguish level. Using such statistical measures, it is proved that cluster accuracy is improved to the extent of 0.83, over existing k-means clustering with validity measure 0.26, FCM (Fuzzy C Means) clustering with validity measure 0.56. Rough set based clustering with validity measure 0.54 Generation of dense clusters is essential for finding interesting patterns needed for further mining and analysis.
Cushing syndrome secondary to ectopic adrenocorticotropic hormone secretion

Cushing syndrome (CS) secondary to ectopic adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) secretion (EAS) has been described in association with a variety of tumors. The current experience with this syndrome was based on a few case series and individual case reports. Limited data were available about the tumors associated with CS‐EAS in a cancer center setting. In this report, the authors have described their experience with CS‐EAS at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to further enhance the current understanding and management of this syndrome.
THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL, PSYCHIATRIC, AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF PROLONGED AND SEVERE STRESS: 30 YEARS LATER

This study investigates the long term or residual effects resulting from severe and extended exposure to stress. The samples were prisoners of war who were interned in Japan (high stress group) or Europe (low stress group) during the Second World War. They were examined in the following three areas: neuropsychological, psychiatric, and physical/neurological. Significant differences were found in all three spheres between the two groups. Second, to examine further the effect of length of internment on these variables, the low stress group was divided into long term and short term internment duration groups, and then the three groups were compared. Significant differences were found among these three groups. These results are discussed in relation to a traditional model of explanation.
A fast eye localization and verification method to improve face matching in surveillance videos

Automatic face recognition (FR) problem has been extensively studied and applied to domains including biometrics, security, authentication, surveillance, and identification. Face recognition algorithms commonlly use high dimensional information and are therefore computationally expensive. The use of wrongly detected features can confuse the recognition process and make it even slower. This paper presents a set of heuristic lightweight features to describe eye regions. These features are used to further classify detected eye regions into false positive and positive ones. Note that the detected eye regions are all very similar, making it hard to find a good set of features to separate them. The classification is done by simply applying a threshold proportional to the variance of the data. The method was able to correctly classify 49.8% of the false positive samples, which if applied to Viola and Jones' best result could potentially turn its 93.7% performance into 96.8%. If the classification considers the pairs heuristics, the performance goes up to 83.3% at the expense of wrongly classifying positive samples. It would make the 93.7% become 98.9%.
Fracture-dislocation of the cervical spine with ankylosing spondylitis. Report of two cases.

✓ Two cases of cervical fracture-dislocation causing neurological deficits in patients with ankylosing spondylitis are presented. Review of the literature shows that these patients have a higher incidence of neurological deficits (70%) than comparable patients without ankylosing spondylitis (44%). Predisposing factors and treatment are discussed.
The Bach reader : a life of Johann Sebastian Bach, in letters and documents

Through hundreds of letters, family papers, anecdotes, and records, the Bach Reader established a new approach to biography by offering original documents in impeccable translations. In The New Bach Reader, Christoph Wolff has incorporated numerous facsimiles and added many newly discovered items, reflecting the current state of scholarship about the composer's life and music. The readings in this volume provide an accurate and vivid picture of Bach's world and of his far-reaching influence.
FK506 and anti-CD40 ligand in peripheral nerve allotransplantation.

PURPOSE Immunomodulatory agents are often combined in organ transplantation to minimize toxicity and enhance therapeutic effect. We hypothesized that combining low-dose FK506 with anti-CD40 Ligand (anti-CD40L mAb) would enhance regeneration through peripheral nerve allografts while preserving immune unresponsiveness. METHODS Eighty Balb/cJ mice underwent tibial nerve grafting and were randomized to 10 groups treated with combinations of anti-CD40L mAb therapy, low-dose FK506 (0.5 mg/kg/day), high-dose FK506 (2 mg/kg/day), and high-dose cyclosporine (25 mg/kg/day). At 3 weeks, histomorphometry and cytokine secretion assays were performed. RESULTS Animals receiving low-dose FK506 with anti-CD40L mAb exhibited robust nerve regeneration comparable to the isograft and high-dose FK506 allograft groups. Nerve density was significantly increased in the low-dose FK506 with anti-CD40L mAb group compared to animals receiving anti-CD40L mAb alone (p < 0.05). Combining anti-CD40L mAb with high dose cyclosporine decreased nerve fiber counts, nerve density, and percent nerve (p < 0.05). Interferon-gamma production was markedly elevated in untreated allografts compared to all other treatment groups (p < 0.05). Cytokine secretion was intermediate in the low-dose FK506 alone group and suppressed in all remaining groups. CONCLUSION When combined with anti-CD40L mAb, low-dose FK506 enhances nerve regeneration without disrupting immune unresponsiveness.
Prise en charge de la douleur prolongée du nouveau-né à terme en salle de naissance

Objectif : Evaluer la prise en charge de la douleur prolongee du nouveau-ne a terme en salle de naissance Moyens : Etude comparative de tous les nouveau-nes nes a Port-Royal sur deux periodes de trois semaines entre mai et juillet 2009 avant et apres la mise en place d'un protocole d'evaluation et de traitement de la douleur prolongee en salle de naissance. Resultats : 147 et respectivement 150 nouveau-nes ont ete inclus dans chaque phase. Les deux populations etaient comparables en termes de facteurs de risque ou signes cliniques. 62/150 ont ete evalue par score EDIN dans la phase 2, aucun dans la phase 1. Sept et 6 patients ont ete traites dans chaque phase. Le nombre de traitement par paracetamol (5/7 versus 2/6) a diminue au profit de la diversification des strategies comportementales (2/7 versus 4/6) en phase 2. Conclusions : La mise en place d'un protocole a permis une meilleure evaluation de la douleur prolongee du nouveau-ne en salle de naissance et une augmentation des strategies de traitement comportementales versus le paracetamol.
The Relation of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviors, and Academic Achievement Is Mediated by Fitness and Bedtime.

BACKGROUND This study investigated the associations of subjectively and objectively measured physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior with academic achievement. We further examined whether aerobic fitness, obesity, and bedtime mediate these associations. METHODS This study included 970 children aged 9-15 years (52.3% girls) from 9 schools throughout Finland. Register-based academic achievement [grade point average (GPA)] as well as self-reported and accelerometer-measured PA/sedentary behavior were assessed during spring 2013. Aerobic fitness (assessed via a maximal shuttle run test), body composition (assessed via bioimpedance analysis), and self-reported bedtime were collected. Structural equation modeling was applied to examine the associations. Standardized regression coefficients are presented. RESULTS Self-reported PA had a direct positive [β = 0.084; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.023 to 0.145] and an indirect positive association with GPA through higher aerobic fitness (β = 0.061; 95% CI, 0.033 to -0.087). Accelerometer-based PA was not associated with GPA. Self-reported screen time had an indirect negative association with GPA through later bedtime (β = -0.071; 95% CI, -0.096 to -0.035) and lower aerobic fitness (β = -0.039; 95% CI, -0.059 to 0.019). Nonscreen sedentary time had a direct positive (β = 0.193; 95% CI, 0.101 to -0.289) and an indirect negative association with GPA through lower aerobic fitness (β = -0.040; 95% CI, -0.063 to -0.016). CONCLUSIONS Participating in PA, avoiding excessive screen time, and going to bed earlier may benefit academic achievement.
A Heuristic Search Approach for a Nonstationary Stochastic Shortest Path Problem with Terminal Cost

We present a best-first heuristic search approach for determining an optimal policy for a stochastic shortest path problem. A vehicle is to travel from an origin, starting at timet0, to a destination, where once the destination is reached a terminal cost is accrued. The terminal cost depends on the time of arrival. Travel time along each arc in the network is modeled as a random variable with a distribution dependent on the time that travel along the arc is begun. The objective is to determine a routing policy that minimizes expected total cost. A routing policy is a rule that assigns the next arc to traverse, given the current node and time.The heuristic search algorithm that we specialize to this stochastic problem is AO *. We demonstrate the significant computational advantages of AO *, relative to dynamic programming, on the basis of run time and storage, using a 131-intersection network of the major roads in Cleveland, Ohio. Further computational experience is based on grid networks that were randomly generated to have characteristics similar to transportation networks, and on randomly generated unstructured networks.
Urodynamic Findings in Young Women of Less Than Forty Years Old with Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms

Purpose: The aim of the study was to determine urodynamic findings in young women (<40 years old) with bothersome lower urinary tract symptoms. Materials and Methods: The records of 315 women were reviewed during 2002 to 2010. Those with neurological disease, history of urogenital malignancies, urethral stricture or trauma, acute UTI, unsterile urine analysis, congenital urological disease, pelvic organ prolapse, diabetes mellitus or a primary complaint of stress incontinence were excluded. All completed the American Urological Association Symptom Index (AUASI) and underwent urodynamic studies. Results: Bladder dysfunction was diagnosed in 78.4% of the patients with urge incontinence. Bladder and voiding phase dysfunction were found in 134 (42.5%) and 110 (34.9%) of patients, respectively. Occult neurological disease was later diagnosed in 10 women (3.17%) with urge incontinence and bladder dysfunction. Discussion: Urge incontinence and voiding symptoms are frequently associated with urodynamical abnormalities. Urge incontinence and bladder dysfunction may be a sign of occult neurological disease in this population. The presenting symptoms are useful in determining the advantage of urodynamic study in this population.
[Abdominal wall defects from 1961 to 2000--incidence, prenatal diagnosis and prevalence by maternal age].

OBJECTIVE Presentation of defects of the abdominal wall--omphalocele and gastroschisis--in the Czech Republic during 1961 to 2000. Analysis of the prevalence of these defects in different groups by maternal age. DESIGN Retrospective demographic epidemiological study. SETTING Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Prague. METHOD Data from the nationwide registration of congenital defects were used which are kept in the Institute for Health Information and Statistics of the CR and data on the prenatal diagnosis from different departments of medical genetics. Epidemiological analysis of the incidence of defects of the abdominal wall--omphalocele and gastroschisis, diagnosed pre- and postnatally in the Czech Republic in 1961-2000. For the mathematical and statistical analysis of the prevalence of these defects by maternal age the method of calculation of the 95% confidence interval of probability was used. RESULTS In the Czech Republic during the period of 1961-2000 a total of 2293 cases of abdominal wall defects were registered. From this total number of notified defects 1915 cases were diagnosed after delivery, prenatal diagnosis was made in 378 cases and pregnancy was therefore terminated prematurely. From the total number of abdominal wall defects there were 1450 cases of omphalocele (incl. 136 prenatally diagnosed cases) and 843 cases of gastroschisis (incl. 242 cases diagnosed prenatally). CONCLUSION The authors found a significant decrease in the incidence in the neonatal population of the Czech Republic due to the advances of prenatal diagnosis in the recent decade. As regards omphalocele there is a significantly higher risk in women older than 39 years, in the case of gastroschisis there is a higher risk for women under 18 years and women above 39 years.
DISTANCE-DEPENDENT OFFSETS BETWEEN PARALLAXES FOR NEARBY STARS AND GAIA DR1 PARALLAXES

We use 612 single stars with previously published trigonometric parallaxes placing them within 25 pc to evaluate parallaxes released in Gaia’s first data release (DR1). We find that the Gaia parallaxes are, on average, 0.24 ± 0.02 mas smaller than the weighted mean trigonometric parallax values for these stars in the solar neighborhood. We also find that the offset changes with distance out to 100 pc, in the sense that the closer the star, the larger the offset. We find no systematic trends in the parallax offsets with stellar V magnitude, V − K color, or proper motion. We do find that the offset is roughly twice as large for stars south of the ecliptic compared to those that are north.
Chemical composition, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the essential oil of Psammogetoncanescens

This study reports the chemical composition, antimicrobial activity and antioxidant properties of Psammogeton canescens essential oil (EO) and its main compounds. The EO was obtained from the aerial parts of P. canescens by hydrodistillation and analysed by using GC/MS. The main constituent was β-bisabolene (25%), followed by α-pinene (20%), apiole (15.34%), γ-terpinene (7.34%), p-cymene (5.35%), β-pinene (5.41%), camphene (5.12%), dill apiole (5%), myrcene (4.54%), colchicine (0.56), sylvestrene (0.56%), β-caryophyllene (0.45%), caryophyllene oxide (0.43%), (Z)-β-farnesene (0.32%), cembrene (0.21%), folic acid (0.21%), germacrene D (0.14) and β-sesquiphellandrene (0.13). β-Bisabolene exhibited strong antioxidant activity (14 ± 0.8 μg/mL). The EO of P. canescens was particularly active against Candida albicans and Escherichia coli, with the lowest minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal/fungicidal concentration values. In conclusion, these results support the use of the EO and its main compounds for their antioxidant properties and antimicrobial activity.