Secretory Carcinoma: A Silent Mass Increasing in the Parotid Gland

BACKGROUND: Secretory carcinoma (SC) of the salivary gland, also known as mammary analog secretory carcinoma, is a rare tumor in the parotid gland. This kind of tumor is characterized by generally indolent clinical behavior and expression of a break in the ETV6 gene. CASE REPORT: We present a unique case of secretory carcinoma and show its favorable prognoses. CONCLUSION: Secretory carcinoma of the salivary gland is a low-grade carcinoma with a favorable prognosis. It has low regional lymph node and distant metastasis potential. Due to the possibility of misdiagnosis, immunohistochemical studies and FISH are suggested. The most effective treatment is complete surgical excision with negative surgical margins

Space-Time Algorithms: Semantics and Methodology

A methodology for specifying concurrent systems is presented. A model of computation for concurrent systems is presented first. The syntax and semantics of the language CRYSTAL are introduced. The specification of a system is called a space-time algorithm since space and time are explicit parameters in the description. Fixed-point semantics is used for abstracting the behavior of a system from its implementation. The consistency between an implementation and its description can therefore be ensured using this method. Formal semantics for an arbitrary transistor network is given. An "interpreter" for space-time algorithms - a hierarchical simulator - for VLSI systems is presented. The framework can be viewed as a concurrent programming notation when describing communicating processes and as a hardware description notation when specifying integrated circuits

Why did some firms perform better in the global financial crisis?

We explore what firm and macroeconomic factors assisted Chinese firms to resist the global financial crisis. We find that firms with higher top ten shareholder ratios or firms that are older exhibited saliently higher performance during the crisis, but performed poorly during the non-crisis period. Firm size has a notably negative impact on firm performance. Firms audited by the Big Four accounting firms have a significantly negative correlation with performance. During the crisis, stock markets became less efficient in incorporating firm-specific information into stock prices, signifying that the determinants of firm performance vary across non-crisis and crisis periods

Did the S.A.R.S. epidemic weaken the integration of Asian stock markets? Evidence from smooth time-varying cointegration analysis

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (S.A.R.S.) epidemic on the long-run relationship between China and four Asian stock markets. To this end, we first employ the advanced smooth time-varying cointegration model to investigate the existence of a time-varying cointegration relation among these markets and then employ the difference-indifferences approach to analyse whether or not the S.A.R.S. epidemic impacted the long-run relation between China and these four markets during the period 1998–2008, covering 5 years before and after the S.A.R.S. outbreak. Our results support the existence of a time-varying cointegration relation in the aggregate stock price indices, and that the S.A.R.S. epidemic did weaken the long-run relationship between China and the four markets. Therefore, stockholders and policy makers should be concerned about the influence of catastrophic epidemic diseases on the financial integration of stock market in Asia

Integration of Lane-Specific Traffic Data Generated from Real-Time CCTV Videos into INDOT\u27s Traffic Management System

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) uses about 600 digital cameras along populated Indiana highways in order to monitor highway traffic conditions. The videos from these cameras are currently observed by human operators looking for traffic conditions and incidents. However, it is time-consuming for the operators to scan through all video data from all the cameras in real-time. The main objective of this research was to develop an automatic and real-time system and implement the system at INDOT to monitor traffic conditions and detect incidents automatically. The Transportation and Autonomous Systems Institute (TASI) of the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and the INDOT Traffic Management Center have worked together to research and develop a system that monitors the traffic conditions based on the INDOT CCTV video feeds. The proposed system performs traffic flow estimation, incident detection, and the classification of vehicles involved in an incident. The goal was to develop a system and prepare for future implementation. The research team designed the new system, in­cluding the hardware and software components, the currently existing INDOT CCTV system, the database structure for traffic data extracted from the videos, and a user-friendly web-based server for identifying individual lanes on the highway and showing vehicle flowrates of each lane automatically. The preliminary prototype of some system components was implemented in the 2018–2019 JTRP projects, which provided the feasibility and structure of the automatic traffic status extraction from the video feeds. The 2019–2021 JTRP project focused on developing and improving many features’ functionality and computation speed to make the program run in real-time. The specific work in this 2021–2022 JTRP project is to improve the system further and implement it on INDOT’s premises. The system has the following features: vehicle-detection, road boundary detection, lane detection, vehicle count and flowrate detection, traffic condition detection, database development, web-based graphical user interface (GUI), and a hardware specification study. The research team has installed the system on one computer in INDOT for daily road traffic monitoring operations

Road Condition Detection and Classification from Existing CCTV Feed

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) has approximately 500 digital cameras along highways in populated areas of Indiana. These cameras are used to monitor traffic conditions around the clock, all year round. Currently, the videos from these cameras are observed one-by-one by human operators looking for traffic conditions and incidents. The main objective of this research was to develop an automatic, real-time system to monitor traffic conditions and detect incidents automatically. The Transportation and Autonomous Systems Institute (TASI) of the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and the Traffic Management Center of INDOT developed a system that monitors the traffic conditions based on the INDOT CCTV video feeds. The proposed system performs traffic flow estimation, incident detection, and classification of vehicles involved in an incident. The research team designed the system, including the hardware and software components added to the existing INDOT CCTV system; the relationship between the added system and the currently existing INDOT system; the database structure for traffic data extracted from the videos; and a user-friendly, web-based server for showing the incident locations automatically. The specific work in this project includes vehicle-detection, road boundary detection, lane detection, vehicle count over time, flow-rate detection, traffic condition detection, database development, web-based graphical user interface (GUI), and a hardware specification study. The preliminary prototype of some system components has been implemented in the Development of Automated Incident Detection System Using Existing ATMS CCT (SPR-4305)

Political and social determinants of life expectancy in less developed countries: A longitudinal study

EstE livro corrEspondE à primeira experiência didática do Grupo de trabalho desenvolvimento Urbano do conselho latinoamericano de ciências sociais (clAcso), que reúne cerca de quarenta pesquisadores de diferentes instituições da região. Esta experiência tornou-se possível, graças ao fato da proposta deste curso ter sido aprovada no âmbito da cátedra Florestan Fernandes do conselho. completamente desenvolvida através do campus virtual do clAcso, teve, por principal objetivo, estimular a reflexão sobre alguns dos principais eixos teórico-conceituais e empíricos orientadores da análise da urbanização latino-americana

Ontology-based Fuzzy Markup Language Agent for Student and Robot Co-Learning

An intelligent robot agent based on domain ontology, machine learning mechanism, and Fuzzy Markup Language (FML) for students and robot co-learning is presented in this paper. The machine-human co-learning model is established to help various students learn the mathematical concepts based on their learning ability and performance. Meanwhile, the robot acts as a teacher's assistant to co-learn with children in the class. The FML-based knowledge base and rule base are embedded in the robot so that the teachers can get feedback from the robot on whether students make progress or not. Next, we inferred students' learning performance based on learning content's difficulty and students' ability, concentration level, as well as teamwork sprit in the class. Experimental results show that learning with the robot is helpful for disadvantaged and below-basic children. Moreover, the accuracy of the intelligent FML-based agent for student learning is increased after machine learning mechanism.Comment: This paper is submitted to IEEE WCCI 2018 Conference for revie

The Relationship between Qi Deficiency, Cancer-related Fatigue and Quality of Life in Cancer Patients

AbstractBackgroundQi (氣 qì) refers to the vital energy of the body in Traditional Chinese medicines (TCM). Qi deficiency (氣虛 qì xū) is the most common symptom in cancer patients according to the concept of TCM. We hypothesized that cancer patients with Qi deficiency suffer from poor quality of life (QOL) and fatigue.MethodAmong the 256 registered cancer patients screened at our outpatient clinic, a total of 198 were enrolled. The inclusion criteria were (1) age between 18 and 70years, (2) cancer diagnosis confirmed by the professional physician, (3) being Chinese, and (4) Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status rating (PSR)≤3. The major outcome is the difference in QOL score in cancer patients with and without Qi deficiency.ResultsThe initial results showed statistically significant differences in WHO-QOL scores in physical, psychological, and social domains between the groups with and without Qi deficiency as well as the groups with and without cancerrelated fatigue (CRF). All patients with CRF present were also diagnosed as Qi deficient. In addition, among the patients with no CRF, 39.9% (69/173) were diagnosed as suffering from Qi deficiency, which led to poor QOL.ConclusionsThe present study showed statistically significant difference in WHO-QOL scores in physical, psychological, and social domains between the groups with and without Qi deficiency as well as the groups with and without CRF. Cancer patients diagnosed with Qi deficiency or CRF have poor QOL. The concept of Qi deficiency in TCM might be applied to cancer health care