1,084 research outputs found
A day in the life - Ahmed Refai audio diary
No full textThis audio diary was recorded by student Ahmed Refai for the course JRMC 4460 in Fall 2017. The #AUCdiaries project is an oral history project that documents the life of the AUC community. The project was initiated by Kim Fox in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication (JRMC) along with Hoda Mostafa, Maha Bali and Nadine Aboulmagd, all from the Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT)
RefAI: A GPT-Powered Retrieval-Augmented Generative Tool for Biomedical Literature Recommendation and Summarization
No full textObjectives: Precise literature recommendation and summarization are crucial for biomedical professionals. While the latest iteration of generative pretrained transformer (GPT) incorporates 2 distinct modes-real-time search and pretrained model utilization-it encounters challenges in dealing with these tasks. Specifically, the real-time search can pinpoint some relevant articles but occasionally provides fabricated papers, whereas the pretrained model excels in generating well-structured summaries but struggles to cite specific sources. In response, this study introduces RefAI, an innovative retrieval-augmented generative tool designed to synergize the strengths of large language models (LLMs) while overcoming their limitations.
Materials and methods: RefAI utilized PubMed for systematic literature retrieval, employed a novel multivariable algorithm for article recommendation, and leveraged GPT-4 turbo for summarization. Ten queries under 2 prevalent topics ( cancer immunotherapy and target therapy and LLMs in medicine ) were chosen as use cases and 3 established counterparts (ChatGPT-4, ScholarAI, and Gemini) as our baselines. The evaluation was conducted by 10 domain experts through standard statistical analyses for performance comparison.
Results: The overall performance of RefAI surpassed that of the baselines across 5 evaluated dimensions-relevance and quality for literature recommendation, accuracy, comprehensiveness, and reference integration for summarization, with the majority exhibiting statistically significant improvements (P-values \u3c .05).
Discussion: RefAI demonstrated substantial improvements in literature recommendation and summarization over existing tools, addressing issues like fabricated papers, metadata inaccuracies, restricted recommendations, and poor reference integration.
Conclusion: By augmenting LLM with external resources and a novel ranking algorithm, RefAI is uniquely capable of recommending high-quality literature and generating well-structured summaries, holding the potential to meet the critical needs of biomedical professionals in navigating and synthesizing vast amounts of scientific literature
A model for the internal evaluation of the quality of care after lung resection in the elderly
No full textSupporting opportunities for female entrepreneurs in Jordan
No full textFemale entrepreneurship in developing countries is a growing body of research that tries
to address the main challenges faced in such a context. The aim of this paper is to shed some
light on the real opportunities for female entrepreneurs in terms of support for their start-ups.
A lack of studies with this specific focus may detach the pertinent literature from real
business practice and the true conditions faced by women during the start-up process. We
grounded our analysis in Jordan, a country that has received little attention, despite the fact
that it has one of the liveliest entrepreneurial contexts in the Middle East. A sample of 28
institutions operating in Jordan that offer support for entrepreneurial activities were
examined. This is followed by a discussion of the main implications of the initiatives
dedicated to female entrepreneurs
A Better Future? Understanding Refugee Entrepreneurship
No full textThe refugee journey is traumatic, and this can have a profound impact on the desire of refugees to demonstrate their usefulness in a new country. Many refugees also originate from countries with high self-employment rates and research suggests that high numbers of refugees are interested in self-employment when they arrive in new countries (Wauters and Lambrecht 2006; Heilbrunn and Iannone 2020). Moreover, in a changing international policy context focussed on economic development over and above refugee rights and protection (Betts and Collier 2017; Dauvergne 2018; Crawley 2021), there has also been a growing policy emphasis on refugee entrepreneurship (Refai, Haloub and Lever 2018; IOM 2018; Heilbrunn and Iannone, 2020). In the last decade in particular, as the European migration crisis intensified, Syrian refugee entrepreneurs have been the focus of attention, both in countries bordering Syria and in countries across the Global North (Heilbrunn et al. 2019). This report focusses on Syrian refugee entrepreneurs in the UK
Bioactive peptides and proteins in disease
No full textRegulatory peptides and marker proteins are important to study in order to understand disease mechanisms. This applies of course also to our common diseases where all relationships are not yet known. Cancer and diabetes are two such complex diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. This thesis addresses particular aspects of these two diseases, regarding one regulatory peptide (VIP, vasoactive intestinal polypeptide) that may be useful for tumor tracing and two proteins (apoCIII, apolipoprotein CIII, and TTR, transthyretin) that are altered in type 1 diabetes.VIP and functional VIP receptors are expressed in neuroblastomas, suggesting that the growth of these cells may be mediated in part by an autocrine action of VIP. VIP receptors are present in many epithelial cancers including breast, colon, non-small cell lung cancer, and pancreatic and prostate cancers. Due to the high density of VIP receptors on cancer cells, radiolabelled VIP may be used to image these tumours. It was therefore important for us to study in vivo distribution of the radiolabelled VIP prior to its usage as tumour tracer. We also studied the biological effects of VIP on tumours in an animal model, as there may be differences with respect to receptor expression between cultured tumour cells and tumour cells grown in vivo. Our studies could provide new insight into tumour imaging with respect to radiolabelled VIP.Type 1 diabetes serum was shown to increase intracellular Ca2+ and cause cell death. ApoCIII and TTR were isolated from sera of newly diagnosed type 1 diabetic patients based on a biological assay of increases of intracellular Ca2+. The exposure of the pancreatic beta-cell to apoCIII not only increases intracellular Ca2+, but also causes programmed cell death. Furthermore, the activity of apoCIII and type 1 diabetes serum was totally blocked when a polyclonal antibody against human apoCIII was added. TTR did not have any effect on cell death. When applying the patch clamp technique, both cells treated with apoCIII and those treated with TTR displayed larger Ca 2+ -channel currents than control cells.Research over the last 30 years has established that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, but the triggers of the initiation and progression of the disease are still not identified. Genetic, immunological and environmental factors are involved in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes and it is most likely that the events involved can differ between different patients. Further investigations are needed to elucidate all pathways and how they are related to the underlying autoimmunity, but our results show that there is at least a group of type 1 diabetes patients where apoCIII and TTR play a role.List of scientific papersI. Hassan M, Refai E, Andersson M, Schnell PO, Jacobsson H (1994). In vivo dynamical distribution of 131I-VIP in the rat studied by gamma-camera. Nucl Med Biol. 21(6): 865-72. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9234336II. Refai E, Jonsson C, Andersson M, Jacobsson H, Larsson S, Kogner P, Hassan M (1999). Biodistribution of liposomal 131I-VIP in rat using gamma camera. Nucl Med Biol. 26(8): 931-6. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10708307III. Kogner P, Borgstrom P, Bjellerup P, Schilling FH, Refai E, Jonsson C, Dominici C, Wassberg E, Bihl H, Jacobsson H, Theodorsson E, Hassan M (1997). Somatostatin in neuroblastoma and ganglioneuroma. Eur J Cancer. 33(12): 2084-9. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9516858IV. Juntti-Berggren L, Refai E, Appelskog I, Andersson M, Imreh G, Dekki N, Uhles S, Yu L, Griffiths WJ, Zaitsev S, Leibiger I, Yang SN, Olivecrona G, Jorbvall H, Berggren PO (2004). Apolipoprotein CIII promotes Ca2+ dependent beta-cell death in type 1 diabetes. [Submitted] V. Refai E, Dekki N, Yang SN, Yu L, Norgren S, Marcus C, Andersson M, Jornvall H, Bergren PO, Juntti-Berggren L (2004). Transthyterin increases activity of voltage-gated L-type Ca2+ -channels and affects insulin release in pancreatic beta-cells. [Manuscript]</p
Model-based regression test selection for validating runtime adaptation of software systems
No full textAn increasing number of modern software systems need to be adapted at runtime without stopping their execution. Runtime adaptations can introduce faults in existing functionality, and thus, regression testing must be conducted after an adaptation is performed but before the adaptation is deployed to the running system. Regression testing must be completed subject to time and resource constraints. Thus, test selection techniques are needed to reduce the cost of regression testing.
The FiGA framework provides a complete loop from code to models and back that allows fine-grained model-based adaptation and validation of running Java systems without stopping their execution. In this paper we present a model-based test selection approach for regression testing during the validation activity to be used with the FiGA framework. The evaluation results show that our approach was able to reduce the number of selected test cases, and that the model-level fault detection ability of the selected test cases was never lower than that of the original test cases
A BETTER FUTURE? Understanding Refugee Entrepreneurship (BFURE)
No full textThe refugee journey is traumatic, and this can have a profound impact on the desire of refugees to demonstrate their usefulness in a new country. Many refugees also originate from countries with high self-employment rates and research suggests that high numbers of refugees are interested in self-employment when they arrive in new countries (Wauters and Lambrecht 2006; Heilbrunn and Iannone 2020). Moreover, in a changing international policy context focussed on economic development over and above refugee rights and protection (Betts and Collier 2017; Dauvergne 2018; Crawley 2021), there has also been a growing policy emphasis on refugee entrepreneurship (Refai, Haloub and Lever 2018; IOM 2018; Heilbrunn and Iannone, 2020). In the last decade in particular, as the European migration crisis intensified, Syrian refugee entrepreneurs have been the focus of attention, both in countries bordering Syria and in countries across the Global North (Heilbrunn et al. 2019). This report focusses on Syrian refugee entrepreneurs in the UK
Using models to dynamically refactor runtime code
No full textModern software systems that play critical roles in society's infrastructures are often required to change at runtime so that they can continuously provide essential services in the dynamic environments they operate in. Updating open, distributed software systems at runtime is very challenging. Using runtime models as an interface for updating software at runtime can help developers manage the complexity of updating software while it is executing. To support this idea, we developed the FiGA framework that permits developers to update running software through changes made to UML models of the running software. In this paper, we address the following question: can the UML models be used to express any type of code change a developer desires? Specifically, we report our experience on applying Fowler's code refactoring catalog through model refactoring in the FiGA framework. The goal of this work is to show that the set of FiGA change operators is complete by showing that the refactorings at the source code level can be expressed as model changes in the FiGA approach
Preoperative quality of life predicts survival following pulmonary resection in stage I non-small-cell lung cancer.
No full textAbstract
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to assess the prognostic role of preoperative quality of life (QoL) in patients operated on for early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
METHODS: This is an observational analysis of 131 consecutive patients (2003-08) submitted to pulmonary lobectomy and systematic nodal dissection for pathological pT1N0 or pT2N0 stages NSCLC with a complete follow-up (median 40 months). QoL was measured by the Short Form 36v2, a multidimensional survey assessing eight domains and two composite scales (physical component score [PCS] and mental component score [MCS]). Survival was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method. The log-rank test was used to assess differences between groups. The relationships between survival and QoL composite scales were determined by Cox proportional hazards regression analysis adjusting for the effect of several baseline and clinical variables. PCS and MCS were categorized according to their values greater or lower than 50 percentiles (general population norms).
RESULTS: Fifty-three (40%) patients had PCS 70 (hazard ratio [HR] 2.4, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.2-4.8, P = 0.01) and PCS 50 lived longer than those with PCS 50 compared with those with PCS 50 (55 vs 53%, P = 0.9).
CONCLUSIONS: The physical component of QoL was associated with overall and cancer-specific survivals in patients operated on for early-stage NSCLC. Supportive interventions aimed at improving the perception of physical well-being should be tested to verify whether they can improve long-term prognosis after lung cancer surgery
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