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Mass production of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) from bulk materials is highly desired but far from being satisfactory. Herein, we report a general strategy to mechanically tailor semiconductor bulk materials into QDs. Semiconductor bulk materials are routinely available via simple chemical precipitation. From their bulk materials, a variety of semiconductor (e.g., lead sulfide (PbS), cadmium sulfide (CdS), copper sulfide (CuS), ferrous sulfide (FeS), and zinc sulfide (ZnS)) QDs are successfully produced in high yields (>15 wt%). This is achieved by a combination of silica-assisted ball-milling and sonication-assisted solvent treatment. The as-produced QDs show intrinsic characteristics and outstanding water solubility (up to 5 mg mL-1), facilitating their practical applications. The QD dispersions present remarkable photoluminescence (PL) with exciton-dependence and nanosecond (ns)-scale lifetimes. The QDs-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) hybrid thin films demonstrate exciting solid-state fluorescence and exceptional nonlinear saturation absorption (NSA). Absolute modulation depths of up to 58% and saturation intensities down to 0.40 MW cm-2 were obtained. Our strategy could be applied to any semiconductor bulk materials and therefore paves the way for the construction of the complete library of semiconductor QDs.

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) in plasmonic nanostructures has been investigated for decades due to their wide applications in photonic circuit, quantum optics and biosensing. Development of large-scale, uniform, and efficient plasmonic nanostructure system with tunable modes is desirable for their feasible utilizations. Herein, we design an efficient inch-scale SHG source by a solution-processed method instead of traditional high-cost processes. By assembling the gold nanoparticles with the porous anodic alumina templates, multiresonance in both visible and near-infrared regions can be achieved in hexagonal plasmonic nanostructure arrays, which provide strong electric field enhancement at the gap region. Polarization-independence SHG radiation has been realized owing to the in-plane isotropic characteristic of assembled unit. The tilt-angle dependent and angle-resolved measurement showed that wide-angle nonlinear response is achieved in our device because of the gap geometry of ball-in-bowl nanostructure with nonlinear emission electric dipoles distributed on the concave surface, which makes it competitive in practical applications. Our progress not only makes it possible to produce uniform inch-scale nonlinear arrays through low-cost solution process; and also advances the understanding of the SHG radiation in plasmonic nanostructures.

Hetero-nanostructures of plasmonic metals and semiconductors have attracted increasing attention in the field of photocatalysis. However, most of the hetero-nanostructured catalysts are randomly arranged and therefore require comprehensive structural design for optimizing their properties. Herein, we report the robust construction of hierarchical hetero-nanostructures where gold (Au) nanorods and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) quantum sheets (QSs) are integrated in highly ordered arrays. Such construction is achieved through porous anodic alumina (PAA) template-assisted electrodeposition. The as-fabricated hetero-nanostructures demonstrate exciting electrocatalysis towards hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Both plasmon-induced hot-electron injection and plasmonic scattering/reabsorption mechanisms are determinative to the enhanced electrocatalytic performances. Notably, broadband photoresponses of HER activity in the visible range are observed, indicating their superiority compared with random systems. Such integrated hetero-nanoelectrodes could provide a powerful platform for conversion and utilization of solar energy, meanwhile would greatly prompt the production and exploration of ordered nanoelectrodes.

Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors need to be mounted at the outer surface of any metallic test piece to monitor its structural integrity through measuring physical quantities, such as strain, pressure, vibration, and temperature. High-temperature epoxies or ceramic epoxies are used to mount the said sensors to operate under high-temperature environment conditions. The unsteadiness of the outer surface of the metallic piece and non-uniformity of the applied epoxy over the sensing head, affect its operation and measurement accuracy in the long run. Here, in the first part of a twopart article, we have investigated the reliable functioning and spectrum evolution of the FBG sensors, mounted on a carbonsteel tube, for temperature up to 500° C. Polyimide coated femtosecond laser written FBG sensors are surface mounted on the said tube using a high-temperature adhesive. There is no peak splitting, and chirp phenomenon experienced by the sensors at the end of two thermal cycles. The second part of the two-part article focuses on the mounting and operation of gold-coated FBG sensors in the high-temperature operating environment.

Background: Cognitive impairments in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients has been described as a chronically progressive feature of the disease. However, how severe recurrent seizures modify neuronal circuits in the human brain and subsequently degrade cognitive function, remains largely unknown. Here, we aimed to investigate longitudinal alterations by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in TLE patients and to assess how those alterations are related to cognitive function performance. Methods: Sixteen TLE patients and 20 normal controls (NCs) were recruited for a study to observe longitudinal alterations in resting-state functional connectivity (FC) and to estimate alertness, orientation, and executive function both at baseline and at a follow-up time ~3 years later. Results: TLE patients, compared with NCs, showed impaired executive function, intrinsic alertness, and phasic alertness and exhibited lengthened reaction time (RT) in the spatial cue and center cue conditions at baseline. The orienting function of TLE patients was declined at follow-up compared to the baseline. Cross-sectional analysis demonstrated that TLE patients displayed significantly greater positive correlation than NCs between the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG). Furthermore, among TLE patients, the longitudinal study revealed a decrease in correlation between the right DLPFC and the right SFG compared to the baseline. In addition, there was a significant negative correlation between the longitudinal change in FC and the change in orienting function in TLE subjects. Conclusions: Abnormal connectivity between the DLPFC and the SFG suggests the potential of longitudinal resting-state fMRI to delineate regions relevant to cognitive dysfunction for disease progression.

Geospatial data collection is the most critical and fundamental part of Geographic Information System (GIS), and the tempo-spatial characteristics of geospatial data largely determine the value of GIS. Particularly, in the field of public safety, the emergency spatial data with strong standard and high timeliness is an important guarantee for the emergency command system to make rapid and accurate emergency command decisions. In the traditional emergency spatial data collection process, not only expensive data collection equipment needs to be purchased, but also complicated data post-processing is required to obtain emergency spatial data in standard geographic information data format. In this paper, a real-time emergency spatial data collection and management system based on cross-platform technology is developed to solve the problems in the traditional emergency spatial data collection process. The system is divided into two subsystems: mobile data collection subsystem and data management subsystem. The mobile data collection subsystem adopts Uni-app, a cross-platform development framework, which can develop application that can be used in the form of native application on the Android and IOS platform, mobile web application and Mini program. At the same time, it provides the real-time data editing operation mode, avoids the tedious and complicated data post-processing process, and significantly improves the emergency spatial data collection efficiency. The data management subsystem is based on Vue, a progressive JavaScript framework. Data managers can easily customize the collection template, and complete the work of data audit, management, sharing and format exchange, ensuring the standard and consistency of emergency spatial data. At the same time, this paper takes the collection of emergency spatial data in Shenzhen University Town as an example to demonstrate the basic usage process of our system.

In a heterogeneous simultaneous wireless information and energy transfer (SWIPT) network, the beamforming scheme for multi-users is significantly influenced by the imperfect channel state information (CSI). A joint beamforming scheme for multiple eavesdroppers in two-layer SWIPT network is proposed, jointly design the information and energy beam in the presence of imperfect CSI to serve the several users in the cell. In the meantime, using the signals between macro and pico base stations as the equivalent artificial noise to protect the security and improve the energy efficiency. To this end, an optimization algorithm is designed to approximate the optimal beamforming matrix for maximizing the overall minimum secure energy efficiency. the successive convex approximation (SCA) and semi-positive definite relaxation (SDR) techniques are used to simplify and solve this non-convex optimization problem. The simulation results verifies the security and effectiveness of the scheme.

Background To date, no functional MRI (fMRI) studies have focused on brain entropy in right temporal lobe epilepsy (rTLE) patients. Here, we characterized brain entropy (BEN) alterations in patients with rTLE using resting‐state functional MRI(rs‐fMRI) and explored the relationship between BEN and alertness. Method Thirty‐one rTLE patients and 33 controls underwent MRI scanning to investigate differences in BEN and resting‐state functional connectivity (rs‐FC) in regions of interest (ROIs) between patients and controls. Correlation analyses were performed to examine relationships between the BEN of each ROI and alertness reaction times (RTs) in rTLE patients. Results Compared with controls, the BEN of rTLE patients was significantly increased in the right middle temporal gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, and other regions of the left hemisphere and significantly decreased in the right middle frontal gyrus and left supplementary motor area (p, Decreased in BEN was associated with the intrinsic alertness RT and phasic alertness in patients with rTLE. The abnormal FC in brain regions with altered entropy suggests reconstruction of brain functional connectivity.

In biomedical studies, it is often of interest to estimate how the risk profile of an adverse event is related to the timing of an intervention. For example, in randomized controlled clinical trials of bivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, investigators are interested to know how miscarriage rate relates to the timing of HPV vaccination. A risk window is defined as an interval for the covariate where the risk of adverse event is elevated. Existing methods cannot make simultaneous inference on both the risk window and the magnitude of the risk. A hierarchical Bayesian logistic regression model is developed to estimate the risk window of miscarriage on the time of conception with respect to vaccination. Hierarchical priors are proposed and used in Markov Chain Monte Carlo for statistical inference. The performance of the Bayesian model and two existing methods is evaluated in simulation settings with varying risk windows and relative risks. The proposed model provides both point and interval estimates for the risk window regarding to vaccination, and captures its effect modification on miscarriage risk in pregnancy. Analysis of the vaccine trial using the proposed model shows no significant evidence of an association between the HPV vaccine and miscarriage risk. The hierarchical Bayesian model is useful in general in analyzing a randomized trial or an epidemiological study in which the effect of an agent is potentially modified by a temporal factor.

Fire safety in urban areas is gaining more attention along with the rapid development of urbanization and the increasing complexity of urban structures. Many fire spread models have been developed to support emergency decision making. However, most of them only investigate on single scenarios (forest fire or house fire) and usually have difficulty in balancing model accuracy and timeliness, which makes it hard to apply these models to large-scale heterogeneous scenarios. In this paper, we developed a fire spread model based on the heterogeneous Cellular Automata model for large-scale complex wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas. The model flexibly integrates a forest fire model and a house fire model based on thermal principles and empirical statistics. A software platform is developed based on the fire spread model correspondingly to validate its performance. Taking a real WUI fire occurred in California as a case study, we conducted comparative simulation experiments based on our software platform and widely used forest fire simulation software FlamMap6. The experimental results show that our model can simulate fire spread process with high efficiency, strong timeliness, and competitive accuracy, providing support on emergency decision-making of large-scale complex fire scenarios.

This study is to investigate the therapeutic effect of acupuncture treatment (ACT) on PSD through resting state functional connectivity analysis. The participants include seven PSD patients who have completed ACT trial and seven PSD patients who have completed the control trial. The resting-state functional connectivity patterns between the automated anatomical labeling brain regions were used to reveal the neuroimaging evidence for PSD with ACT. A two-factor mixed experimental design was adopted to investigate the interaction effect of acupuncture on PSD. The functional connectivity was increased in PSD patients after ACT but decreased in those without ACT after 3 weeks. The brain regions such as the right orbit middle frontal gyrus, paracentral lobule, right medial superior frontal gyrus, left angular gyrus, left anterior cingulate gyrus, and right supramarginal gyrus were related to sensorimotor and working memory. Significantly increased functional connectivity was found in PSD patients after ACT but not in those without ACT. ACT can enhance the functional connectivity in the brain. The results indicate that the sensorimotor and working memory of PSD patients is improved.

The nonlocal means filter plays an important role in image denoising. We propose in this paper an image denoising model which is a suitable improvement of the nonlocal means filter. We compare this model with the nonlocal means filter, both theoretically and experimentally. Experiment results show that this new model provides good results for image denoising. Particularly, it is better than the nonlocal means filter when we consider the denoising for natural images with high textures.

This paper presents a GIS based dynamic model of fire spread using heterogeneous cellular automation simulation, given a set of stochastic ignition points and initial environmental settings. Modeling forests and concrete buildings in different types of cells, we have developed the algorithm for fire spread in hybrid urban scenario. As a consequence, our method can model the fire spread process of fire spread from forest areas to urban areas and vice versa in a single experiment. The model is built upon B-S standardized emergency management protocols, which we have customized from the Web Processing Service (WPS). And the standardized emergency management protocols can manage a set of different disaster models in a common structure. The structure of the simulation platform is established to dynamically visualize the fire spread process. And a comparison of experimental results with different wind velocity is carried out to illustrate the model.

In this paper, the wind turbine yaw system is used as research object and Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 control system is adopted as a wind controller. The process of yaw control is deeply studied. In order to ensure the safe and reliable operation of wind turbine, the overall operation plan is designed with combining the algorithms of automatic unmooring and automatic yawing. The control algorithm based on vane and the hill-climbing algorithm based on power detection are integrated. Therefore the different wind direction can be tracked by system in shortest time, and the utilization efficiency of the wind energy is improved. Step7 TIA Portal is used to write control program running on PLC.

The $k$ -nearest neighbor ( $k$ -NN) classification is a nonparametric method to classify objects based on the training set. It is an instance-based classifier operating on the assumption that the unknown instance is related to the known ones according to some distance/similarity functions. In this brief, a hardware-assisted algorithm, i.e., vote count, is introduced to approximate the $k$ -NN classifier to provide a low-cost classification solution. It is found that this hardware-assisted solution achieves similar performance as that of the $k$ -NN classifier. In addition, it is highly scalable with respect to the training sample size, which is essential for the $k$ -NN algorithm to deliver its full potential for real-life classification problems.

Some baseline patient factors, such as biomarkers, are useful in predicting patients' responses to a new therapy. Identification of such factors is important in enhancing treatment outcomes, avoiding potentially toxic therapy that is destined to fail and improving the cost-effectiveness of treatment. Many of the biomarkers, such as gene expression, are measured on a continuous scale. A threshold of the biomarker is often needed to define a sensitive subset for making easy clinical decisions. A novel hierarchical Bayesian method is developed to make statistical inference simultaneously on the threshold and the treatment effect restricted on the sensitive subset defined by the biomarker threshold. In the proposed method, the threshold parameter is treated as a random variable that takes values with a certain probability distribution. The observed data are used to estimate parameters in the prior distribution for the threshold, so that the posterior is less dependent on the prior assumption. The proposed Bayesian method is evaluated through simulation studies. Compared to the existing approaches such as the profile likelihood method, which makes inferences about the threshold parameter using the bootstrap, the proposed method provides better finite sample properties in terms of the coverage probability of a 95% credible interval. The proposed method is also applied to a clinical trial of prostate cancer with the serum prostatic acid phosphatase (AP) biomarker.

k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN) algorithm is a method to find the closest points in a dataset to a query point. The result of kNN can be used for classification and regression, both of which are commonly used in data mining and machine learning. In this paper, Enhanced Vote Count (EVC) circuit, which uses hardware to compare the quantized projected values of query and training/reference vectors instead of the vectors themselves, is considered to approximate the kNN search to provide a low complexity search solution. To improve the performance of EVC with limited projection number because projection number is directly related to implementation cost of EVC circuit, the concept of weak bit is considered and only reliable binary pattern matching is evaluated. The implementation of weak bit based on EVC circuit is also described. Simulation results show that, the performance of EVC can be significantly improved with weak bit implementation under limited projection number.

Vote count (VC) is a fast search algorithm originally designed for similarity search on large scale data set. VC can be efficiently implemented using simple modification to the Random Access Memory (RAM) or other memory structures such as NOR or NAND Flash memory, such that the search complexity reduces to O(1) regardless of the dimensionality of data or the size of the data set. This paper proposes a low complexity implementation for the posterior probability calculation of Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) using the VC circuit. The performance of the proposed implementation is evaluated in terms of both accuracy of the posterior probability calculation, and classification error rate if GMM is used as a classifier.

Cost savings and the ease of developing and adding new services have motivated great interest in Internet telephony, which integrates services provided by the Internet with the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Internet telephony relies on several protocols, including the real-time transport protocol (RTP) for multimedia data transport and the session initiation protocol (SIP) or H.323 for establishing and controlling sessions. SIP can integrate with other Internet services, such as email, the Web, voice mail, instant messaging, conference calling, and multimedia collaboration. We have implemented a SIP-based software suite called the Columbia Internet extensible multimedia architecture (Cinema), which we installed and integrated with the existing private branch exchange (PBX) infrastructure in the computer science department at Columbia University. The Cinema environment provides interoperability with the PSTN, programmable Internet telephony services, and IP-based voice mail. It also integrates Web access and e-mail for unified messaging and supports multiparty multimedia conferencing. The setup lets us extend our PBX capacity and will eventually let us replace it while keeping our existing phone numbers. It also provides an environment in which we can easily add new services and features, including interoperation with existing multimedia tools, e-mail access from standard. telephones, network appliance control, and instant messaging support.

In clinical trials, patients with different biomarker features may respond differently to the new treatments or drugs. In personalized medicine, it is important to study the interaction between treatment and biomarkers in order to clearly identify patients that benefit from the treatment. With the local partial-likelihood estimation (LPLE) method proposed by Fan J, Lin H, Zhou Y. Local partial-likelihood estimation for lifetime data. The Annals of Statistics 2006; 34(1):290Ű325, the treatment effect can be modeled as a flexible function of the biomarker. In this paper, we propose a bootstrap test method for survival outcome data based on the LPLE, for assessing whether the treatment effect is a constant among all patients or varies as a function of the biomarker. The test method is called local partial-likelihood bootstrap (LPLB) and is developed by bootstrapping the martingale residuals. The test statistic measures the amount of change in treatment effects across the entire range of the biomarker and is derived based on asymptotic theories for martingales. The LPLB method is nonparametric and is shown in simulations and data analysis examples to be flexible enough to identify treatment effects in a biomarker-defined subset and more powerful to detect treatment-biomarker interaction of complex forms than the Cox regression model with a simple interaction. We use data from a breast cancer and a prostate cancer clinical trial to illustrate the proposed LPLB test.

Background: High dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) is the standard curative option for patients with relapsed or refractory, chemosensitive, aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The optimal timing for ASCT following salvage chemotherapy is not known. Cancer Care Ontario (CCO)-the cancer agency for Ontario, Canada's largest province-treatment guidelines recommend that no more than 91 days should elapse from the first day of salvage chemotherapy to stem cell transplant. We evaluated the impact of time to stem cell transplant in the context of the international CCTG LY.12 phase 3 clinical trial. Methods: Patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) aggressive NHL were randomly assigned to gemcitabine, cisplatin and dexamethasone (GDP) or dexamethasone, cytarabine, cisplatin (DHAP), with or without rituximab, followed by ASCT [Crump JCO 2014]. Time interval definitions were based on CCO guidelines: Total Wait Time (TWT) as the number of days from the first day of salvage chemotherapy to day of ASCT; Apheresis Wait Time (AWT) as the number of days from the first day of salvage to the first day of stem cell collection; Stem cell transplant Wait Time (SWT) as the number of days from the last day of stem cell collection to the day of ASCT. Patients were considered to have experienced a delay in TWT, AWT or SWT if the time intervals exceeded 91, 70 and 21 days respectively. Overall survival (OS) and event-free survival (EFS) from transplant date were compared between patients who met and exceeded TWT targets using a Cox proportional hazards model. A linear regression model was applied to analyze TWT as a continuous variable. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to estimate the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for TWT for the following co-variables: age ≤60, performance status 0/1, disease stage (I/II), presence of ≤1 extranodal sites, and response after cycle 2 (complete response, CR; complete response, unconfirmed, CRu; partial response, PR). Results: Of 619 patients enrolled on LY.12, 307 (47%) had sufficient response to salvage chemotherapy and adequate stem cell collection to complete ASCT on protocol. Among these, median age was 54.6 years, 64% were male and 94% had a performance status of 0 or 1. International Prognostic Index (IPI) score at relapse was 0-1 in 45%, 2 in 31% and ≥3 in 24%. The majority of patients had poor risk disease at study entry; 58% had a best response of stable disease (SD) or progressive disease (PD) to primary therapy, or initial duration of response < 1 year. Following up to 2 cycles of salvage chemotherapy, 75/307 (24%) achieved CR/CRu, 142/307 (46%) achieved PR, 89/307 (29%) had SD. One patient had missing data. The median TWT for the total transplanted population was 91 days (range 50-217). Median AWT and SWT were 63 (range 0-151) and 26 (range 6-146) days, respectively. Fifty percent of patients exceeded TWT target of 91 days; 32% and 57% of patients exceeded AWT and SWT targets. There was no difference in median OS (HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.66-1.39, p=0.81) or EFS (HR 1.13, 95% CI 0.82-1.55, p=0.46) between patients who exceeded and met TWT targets. The 4-year OS for patients who met and exceeded TWT was 62% and 64%, respectively. The 4-year EFS for patients who met and exceeded TWT was 43% and 50%, respectively. When analyzed as a continuous variable, TWT did not affect OS (HR 0.99) or EFS (HR 0.99). Comparison of the quartiles with shortest and longest TWT demonstrated HR 0.72 (95% CI 0.42-1.26, p=0.25) for overall survival and 0.69 (95% CI 0.44-1.09, p=0.11) for EFS. Comparison of the 10th and 90th percentiles for TWT demonstrated HR 0.67 (95% CI 0.28-1.59, p=0.36) for overall survival and 0.71 (95% CI 0.35-1.44, p=0.34) for EFS. Only the presence of ≤1 extranodal sites of disease was found to be predictive of OS in the transplanted population on univariate and multivariate analysis (adjusted HR 0.51, p=0.005). The median TWT was longer for the 31 patients transplanted at Italian centers, compared to 266 transplanted at Canadian centers (median TWT 90 vs. 118 days, t < 0.0001). Conclusion: In this exploratory analysis, limited to patients who completed transplant on the LY.12 clinical trial, we did not find evidence that those meeting current CCO ASCT wait time targets had superior outcomes compared with those who did not. Table. Table. Figure 1. Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 2. Disclosures Kuruvilla: BMS: Consultancy, Honoraria; Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria; Amgen: Honoraria; Abbvie: Consultancy, Honoraria; Janssen: Consultancy, Honoraria; Gilead: Consultancy, Honoraria; Merck: Honoraria; Roche Canada: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Seattle Genetics: Consultancy, Honoraria; Lundbeck: Honoraria. Luminari:Roche: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Other: Travel, Accomodations, Expenses; Takeda: Other: Travel, Accomodations, Expenses; Teva Pharmaceuticals: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Pfizer: Honoraria. Hay:Amgen: Research Funding; Novartis: Research Funding; Janssen: Research Funding; Kite Pharmaceuticals: Research Funding.

Interleukin-17(IL-17)-producing T helper(Th)17 cells are considered as a new subset of cells critical to the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We aimed to investigate the distribution of Th17 cells, the expressions of Th17-related cytokines (IL-17, IL-21 and IL-22) and their association with disease activity in IBD patients.We collected intestinal tissue biopsies from 40 patients with active ulcerative colitis (UC), 20 patients with active Crohn's disease (CD) and 20 healthy controls. The distribution of Th17 cells and expressions of Th17-related cytokines in colonic tissues were evaluated by a standard immunohistochemical procedure. Serum IL-17, IL-21 and IL-22 levels were determined by ELISA. Pearson's and Spearman's correlation analyses were performed to analyze the correlation between the number of Th17 cells, the expressions of Th17-related cytokines and disease activity index, endoscopic and histological grading, and CRP and PLT levels, respectively.Compared with healthy controls, the number of Th17 cells and the expressions of IL-17, IL-21 and IL-22 were significantly increased in active IBD patients (P 0.05). In addition, Pearson's and Spearman's correlation analyses showed that the number of Th17 cells and the expressions of Th17-related cytokines were correlated with disease activity index, endoscopic and histological grading, CRP and PLT levels (P 0.05).Th17 cells and Th17-related cytokines (IL-17, IL-21 and IL-22) were increased in the intestinal mucosa in active IBD patients and may play an important role in disease activity and mucosal damage.

We have developed an architecture for a general-purpose framework for hypermedia collaboration environments that support purposeful work by orchestrated teams. The hypermedia represents all plausible multimedia artifacts concerned with the collaborative task(s) at hand that can be placed or generated on-line, from application-specific materials (e.g., source code, chip layouts, blueprints) to formal documentation to digital library resources to informal email and chat transcripts. The framework capabilities support both internal (WWW-style hypertext) and external (non-WWW open hypertext link server) links among these artifacts, which can be added incrementally as useful connections are discovereds project-specific intelligent hypermedia search and browsings automated construction of artifacts and hyperlinks according to the semantics of the group and individual tasks and the overall workflow among the taskss application of arbitrary tools to the artifactss and collaborative work for geographically dispersed teams connected by the Internet and/or an intranet/extranet. We also present a general architecture for a WWW-based distributed tool launching service compatible with our collaboration environment framework. We describe our prototype realization of the framework in OzWeb. It reuses object-oriented data management for application-specific hyperbase organization, and workflow enactment and cooperative transactions as built-in services, which were originally developed for the Oz non-hypermedia environment. The tool service is implemented by the generic Rivendell component, which has been integrated into OzWeb as an example “foreign” (i.e., add-on) service. Rivendell could alternatively be employed in a stand-alone manner. We have several months experience using an OzWeb hypermedia collaboration environment for our own continuing software development work on the system.

Interleukin-17A and interleukin-17F (IL-17A and IL-17F) are candidate genes for chronic inflammatory disease. We investigated the association between IL17A/F gene polymorphisms and susceptibility to and clinical features of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).A total of 270 ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, 82 Crohn's disease (CD) patients and 268 healthy controls were recruited in this study. Genomic DNA was extracted and analyzed for IL17A/F gene polymorphisms using ligase detection reaction allelic technology.Compared to the controls, the mutant allele C for IL17F rs763780 was significantly more common in CD patients [14.0 vs 8.4 %, P = 0.033, odds ratio (OR) 1.18, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.41-3.04] and was associated with the disease lesion location. This variant of IL17F rs763780 also had a weak correlation with the age of UC onset (P = 0.05, OR 0.97, 95 % CI 0.94-1.00). The IL17A (rs2275913, G-197A) variant had a weak association with the severity of disease: patients with the mutant allele A tended to suffer mild active UC. The haplotype (GGTT) of IL17A formed with four single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs2275913, rs8193037, rs8193038, and rs3804513) was associated with an increased risk of UC (P = 0.034, OR 4.58, 95 % CI 1.54-13.64).The IL17F (rs763780, 7488T/C) variant was associated with an increased risk for the development of CD, and affected some clinical features of UC and CD. The IL17A (rs2275913, G-197A) variant had a weak association with the severity of UC. There was a risk haplotype in IL17A which could increase the risk of UC.

AIM To evaluate diagnostic yields of capsule endoscopy (CE) and/or single-balloon enteroscopy (SBE) in patients with suspected small bowel diseases. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 700 patients with suspected small bowel diseases from September 2010 to March 2016. CE, SBE, or SBE with prior CE was performed in 401, 353, and 47 patients, respectively. Data from clinical and endoscopy records were collected for analysis. Indications, procedure times, diagnostic yields, and complications were summarized and evaluated. RESULTS The overall diagnostic yield for the CE group was 57.6%. The diagnostic yield of CE in patients with obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB) was significantly greater than that in patients with no bleeding (70.5% vs 43.8%, P < 0.01). The overall diagnostic yield of SBE was 69.7%. There was no difference in the diagnostic yield of SBE between patients with OGIB and those with no bleeding (72.5% vs 68.9%, P = 0.534). Forty-seven patients underwent CE prior to SBE. Among them, the diagnostic yield of SBE with positive findings on prior CE was 93.3%. In addition, SBE detected two cases with superficial ulcer and erosive lesions in the small bowel, which were missed by CE. However, one case with lymphoma and two with Crohn’s disease were not confirmed by SBE. The rate of capsule retention was 2.0%. There were no significant complications during or after SBE examinations. CONCLUSION SBE is a safe and effective technique for diagnosing small bowel diseases. SBE with prior CE seemed to improve the diagnostic yield of small bowel diseases.

Similarity search in very high dimensions is vital for many scientific research activities as well as real applications. A high performance, scalable, and optimal quality solution to the problem still remains challenging. We\footnote{Both authors have contributed equally to the work.} propose a vote count based algorithm using $p$-stable distribution for approximate similarity search. Approximate similarity search effectively serves purpose for many real applications. Our algorithm is efficient and scalable with both dimension and database size. We also propose a novel hardware implementation of the algorithm using simple modification to Random Access Memory (RAM). The hardware design gives real time search for millions of points at practical cost. We empirically achieve high accuracy for query results using our algorithm on 128 dimensional synthetic and real datasets.

The increasingly large amount of digital multimedia content has created a need for technologies to search and identify multimedia files. Multimedia fingerprinting has been widely researched and successfully commercialized as a technology to trace and recognize both audio and video content. Most published research on multimedia fingerprinting focuses on the design of the fingerprinting extraction algorithm. The architecture of the fingerprinting database and the database query search algorithm has only been investigated in very few publications. In particular, no comprehensive mathematical models describing the accuracy of database query algorithms have been developed. Therefore, most performance evaluations of fingerprint system rely on experimental data. In this paper, we develop an analytic model to describe the operation of hash-table based multimedia fingerprinting databases. It allows to predict the accuracy of a fingerprinting query algorithm as a function of the statistical distribution of the fingerprints and the specific design of the fingerprint database.

We propose three methods to derive longer fingerprints from features using projection based hashing methods. For this class of hashing methods, a feature matrix is projected onto a set of projection matrices. Then, the projected values are compared to a threshold to derive the hash bits. The methods proposed in this paper reduce the increase in average number of collisions per hour of content in the database by creating longer fingerprint codewords. The first method derives 56 fingerprint bits by projecting the feature matrix onto 56 projection matrices by deriving one bit from each projected value. The second method uses 36 projection matrices but derives 56 fingerprint bits by deriving varying number of bits from each projected value. The third method also 36 projection matrices but derives 56 bits by creating more features that capture the relationships between the projected values. We present experimental results comparing these three methods to a baseline method in terms of collision performance and robustness.

Purpose: Many anticancer therapies benefit only a subset of treated patients and may be overlooked by the traditional broad eligibility approach to design phase III clinical trials. New biotechnologies such as microarrays can be used to identify the patients that are most likely to benefit from anticancer therapies. However, due to the high-dimensional nature of the genomic data, developing a reliable classifier by the time the definitive phase III trail is designed may not be feasible. Experimental Design: Previously, Freidlin and Simon (Clinical Cancer Research, 2005) introduced the adaptive signature design that combines a prospective development of a sensitive patient classifier and a properly powered test for overall effect in a single pivotal trial. In this article, we propose a cross-validation extension of the adaptive signature design that optimizes the efficiency of both the classifier development and the validation components of the design. Results: The new design is evaluated through simulations and is applied to data from a randomized breast cancer trial. Conclusion: The cross-validation approach is shown to considerably improve the performance of the adaptive signature design. We also describe approaches to the estimation of the treatment effect for the identified sensitive subpopulation. Clin Cancer Res; 16(2); 691–8

In this paper, we study the collision property of one of the robust hash functions proposed in [1]. This method was originally proposed for robust hash generation from blocks of image data and is based on projection of image block data on pseudo-random matrices. We show that collision performance of this robust hash function is not optimal when used to extract hash bits from a moment invariants feature matrix for video fingerprinting. We identify that the collision performance of this hash extraction method could be improved if the pseudo-random matrices are selected carefully. We propose two methods that use an offline training set to improve the collision property. Both of the methods attempt to select the matrices that minimize cross-correlation among the projected features. The first method uses an iterative procedure to select the matrices that satisfy a cross-correlation threshold. The second method used Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of the feature covariance matrix and hence the crosscorrelation of the projected values is zero. We show the improved collision performance of both these methods on the same dataset. Also, we interpret the projection matrices obtained through the SVD procedure and show that they capture appearance and motion information from the moment invariants feature matrix.

Video fingerprints can help us identify a large amount of video on the Internet and enable interesting services to the end user. One of the main challenges for video fingerprints is for them to be robust against intentional/ unintentional geometric modifications on the content such as scaling, aspect ratio conversion, rotation and cropping. In this paper, we review a number of fingerprinting methods proposed in literature that are particularly designed to be robust against such modifications. We also present two approaches that we adopted. One that is based on estimation of Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) bases from a window of past video frames (Approach 1) and another that is based on extraction of moment invariant features from concentric circular regions and doesn't require any specific transform (Approach 2). While both approaches provide the desired robustness against geometric modifications, Approach 1 is computationally more intensive than Approach 2 as the SVD bases are updated for every input frame at 12fps. It also requires a longer query clip than Approach 2 for reliable identification. We present results comparing the performance of both of these approaches for a 150hr video database.

Many molecularly targeted anticancer agents entering the definitive stage of clinical development benefit only a subset of treated patients. This may lead to missing effective agents by the traditional broad-eligibility randomized trials due to the dilution of the overall treatment effect. We propose a statistically rigorous biomarker-adaptive threshold phase III design for settings in which a putative biomarker to identify patients who are sensitive to the new agent is measured on a continuous or graded scale.The design combines a test for overall treatment effect in all randomly assigned patients with the establishment and validation of a cut point for a prespecified biomarker of the sensitive subpopulation. The performance of the biomarker-adaptive design, relative to a traditional design that ignores the biomarker, was evaluated in a simulation study. The biomarker-adaptive design was also used to analyze data from a prostate cancer trial.In the simulation study, the biomarker-adaptive design preserved the power to detect the overall effect when the new treatment is broadly effective. When the proportion of sensitive patients as identified by the biomarker is low, the proposed design provided a substantial improvement in efficiency compared with the traditional trial design. Recommendations for sample size planning and implementation of the biomarker-adaptive design are provided.A statistically valid test for a biomarker-defined subset effect can be prospectively incorporated into a randomized phase III design without compromising the ability to detect an overall effect if the intervention is beneficial in a broad population.

We describe a method of estimating the instantaneous queue length of a router or packet forwarding device in the last hop of a wireless network. Our method is more general and more accurate than QFind, and utilizes protocol knowledge of wireless networks such as 802.11 to achieve higher accuracy under both more general traffic conditions and less-than-ideal signal reception conditions during measurements.

This paper proposes algorithms to determine an optimal choice of the FEC parameters (n, k) to mitigate against the effects of packet loss due to buffer overflow at a wireless base station on multimedia traffic. To solve this problem, we develop analytic models of the considered network scenarios that take into account traffic the arrival rates, the channel loss characteristics, and the size of the buffer at the wireless base station. We develop an iterative procedure to compute the packet loss probabilities after FEC recovery and verify the analytical results via simulation.

This paper investigates algorithms to determine an optimal choice of the FEC parameters (n, k) to mitigate the effects of packet loss due to buffer overflow at a wireless base station on multimedia traffic. We develop an analytic model of the considered network scenario that takes into account the traffic arrival rates, the channel loss characteristics, the size of the buffer at the wireless access point, and the influence of the FEC parameters on the packet loss. Applying the theory of recurrent linear equations, we present a new approach to establish a closed form solution of the underlying Markov model for the buffer occupancy and verify the analytical results via simulations

We evaluate the QoS of a number of VoIP end-points, in terms of mouth-to-ear (M2E) delay, clock skew, silence suppression behavior and robustness to packet loss. Our results show that the M2E delay depends mainly on the receiving end-point. Hardware IP phones, when acting as receivers, usually achieve a low average M2E delay (45-90 ms) under low jitter conditions. Software clients achieve an average M2E delay from 65 ms to over 400 ms, depending on the actual implementation. All tested end-points can compensate for clock skew, although some suffer from occasional playout buffer underflow. Only a few of the tested end-points support silence suppression. We find that these silence detectors have a relatively long hangover time (> 0.5 sec), and they may falsely detect music as silence. All hardware IP phones we tested support some form of packet loss concealment better than silence substitution. The concealment generally works well for two to three consecutive losses at 20 ms packet intervals, but voice will quickly deteriorate beyond that.

The rapid growth of Internet traffic has made it important to pinpoint network bottlenecks. Measuring link bandwidths can help identifying such bottlenecks. Existing bandwidth measurement tools such as Pathchar, Bing and Bprobe assume symmetric links. But as ADSL lines, cable modems, satellite links, and 56 K modems gain popularity, it becomes necessary to consider asymmetric links. We present an algorithm that can measure each hop's link bandwidth in both directions in an IP network. Hence it is trivial to detect link asymmetry. We performed several experiments to validate our algorithm. We also discuss factors that can adversely affect the precision and/or correctness of bandwidth measurement, and suggest some possible solutions.

Packet loss and delay in the Internet degrades the quality of Voice over IP (VoIP). Forward error correction (FEC) reduces packet loss at the cost of higher delay and bandwidth. An alternative is a loss-robust voice codec, but also at the expense of higher bit-rates. We compare the perceived quality of both schemes under the same bandwidth requirement. We evaluate two conventional low bit-rate codecs, G.729 and G.723.1, and one robust codec, iLBC. G.729 with FEC generally prevails, but when considering delay impairment, iLBC is better under low packet loss. If iLBC also uses FEC, then its quality can sometimes be better than G.729 plus FEC with the same gross bit-rate. The comparison with G.723.1 is similar, except that G.723.1 is less advantageous for low packet loss because its intrinsic quality is slightly lower than iLBC. Finally, given a target bit-rate, we compute the maximum achievable MOS using any of these codecs. It exhibits an upper limit however large the target bit-rate is, due to the inherent delay impairment of FEC.

Packet loss degrades the perceived quality of voice over IP (VoIP). In addition, packet loss in the Internet tends to come in bursts, which may further degrade audio quality. Using the Gilbert loss model, we infer that changing the packet interval affects loss burstiness, which in turn influences forward error correction (FEC) performance. Next, we perform subjective listening tests based on Mean Opinion Score (MOS) to evaluate the effect of bursty loss on VoIP perceived quality. Then, we compare the perceived quality achieved by two major loss repair methods: FEC and low bit-rate redundancy (LBR). Our MOS test results show that FEC is much preferred over LBR. In addition, our MOS results reveal that, under bursty loss, FEC quality is much better with a moderately large packet interval. Finally, because FEC introduces an extra delay proportional to the packet interval, we present a method of optimizing the packet interval to maximize FEC MOS by considering the delay impairment in ITU's E-model standard.

Background: To date, the role of IL-17C and its specific receptor subunit IL-17RE in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) settings is entirely based on murine models. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the role of the novel IL-17 family member IL-17C and its receptor IL-17RE in human IBD. Methods: IL-17C expression in intestinal epithelial cells (IEC) was analyzed by qPCR, immunoblotting, immunohistochemistry, EMSA, RNA interference and pharmacological or antibody-mediated inhibition. IL-17C protein and mRNA expression in IBD patient samples was assessed by ELISA, qPCR and immunohistochemistry. IL-17C serum levels were correlated to IL23R genotype status. Results: IL-17A amplifies IL-17C expression in human IEC upon TNF-α stimulation; this depends on TNFα-activated NF-κB, ERK-1/2 and p38 MAP kinases, and IL-17A-activated Akt kinase, MCPIP and C/EBP-δ pathways. IL-17C serum levels are elevated in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) (P=0.008). IL-17C mRNA is increased in inflamed colonic sections of IBD patients (P=0.005) and correlates significantly with the mRNA expression of Th1 cytokines (e.g., IFN-γ; P

We describe the architecture and implementation of our Internet teleph ony test-bed intended to replace the departmental PBX (telephone switch). It interworks with the traditional telephone networks via a PSTN/IP gateway. It also serves as a corporate or campus infrastructure for existing and future services like web, email, video and streaming media. Initially intended for a few users, it will eventually replace the plain old telephones from our offices, due to the cost benefit and new services it offers. We also discuss common inter-operability problems between the PBX and the gateway.

A hypercode software engineering environment represents all plausible multimedia artifacts concerned with software development and evolution that can be placed or generated on-line,from source code to formal documentation to digital library resources to informal email and chat transcripts. A hypercode environment supports both internal (hypertext) and external (link server) links among these artifacts, which can be added incrementally as useful connections are discovered; project-specific hypermedia search and browsing; automated construction of artifacts and hyperlinks according the software process; application of tools to the artifacts according to the process workflow; and collaborative work for geographically dispersed teams. We present a general architecture for what we call hypermedia subwebs, and groupspace services operating on shared subwebs, based on World Wide Web technology which could be applied over the Internet or within an intranet. We describe our realization in OzWeb.

Ovarian cancer is the 5th leading cause of cancer related death in women, and has the highest associated mortality rate of any of the gynecological cancers. Approximately 75-80% of women diagnosed will succumb to the disease. The high mortality rate associated with ovarian cancer is due to poor screening and detection methods, resulting in late stage diagnosis, and also to resistance of the tumours to chemotherapeutic drugs. Primary drug resistance occurs in about 20% of patients during their treatment phase while approximately 70-80% of women that initially respond to chemotherapy will develop drug resistance over the course of treatment or at the time of relapse. Being able to accurately predict which patients will not successfully respond to drugs is the first step in developing personalized medicine and preventing useless chemotherapy treatments. In order to discover biomarkers of cisplatin resistance, a multi-platform integrative approach was taken utilizing data from aCGH as well as miRNA and mRNA microarrays. Data were collected from a drug sensitive and drug resistant ovarian cancer cell line pair (A2780 and A2780cis). Working with the paired cell lines provided a homogeneous population with which to build an integration algorithm. Data analysis using GeneSpring and Nexus software showed an enrichment of genes involved in TGFβ and EGF signaling. These signaling pathways lead us to investigate the involvement of the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) in drug resistance. Interestingly, many of the key genes involved in the regulation of the EMT process were found to be upregulated in our mRNA expression data. Observations from cell culture work support EMT involvement. We have noted a slower growth rate and a change to a fibroblastic appearance in the resistant cells relative to their drug sensitive parents. Immunohistochemistry has also been utilized to show an increase in mesenchymal markers in the resistant cell line. In order to determine if these findings were representative of drug resistance in human ovarian cancer, expression data from cisplatin sensitive and resistant ovarian cancer tumours were mined specifically for these and other EMT genes. A large number of the same EMT genes were consistently shown to be upregulated in the drug resistant tumour tissues relative to the sensitive tumours. Together, these data suggest the potential involvement of the epithelial to mesenchymal transition in the development of cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer. Further validation of these results in vitro is currently in progress. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1719. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-1719