Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Imaging Human Atherosclerosis with 99mTc‐labeled Low Density Lipoproteins

The feasibility of localizing human atherosclerotic plaques by gamma scintillation camera external Imaging with technetlum-99m-labeled low density lipoproteins (Tc-LDL) was tested In 17 patients who had atherosclerosis. Imaging demonstrated focal accumulation of radlolabel consistent with 99mTc-LD L sequestration by plaques In the carotid, lilac, or femoral vessels of four patients 8 to 21 hours after Intravenous Injection of the radlopharmaceutlcal. Focal accumulation of 99mTc-LD L also appeared In the location of coronary lesions In four patients, but this accumulation could not be distinguished with certainty from residual blood pool radioactivity. When carotid endarterectomy specimens from six patients who received 99mTc - LDL 1 day before endarterectomy were examined, the specimens had focal accumulations of radlolabel, with two to four times greater radioactivity In some regions of each specimen than In others; this occurred whether or not the lesions were detected on the gamma camera Images. Lesion composition may have determined whether accumulation was quantitatively sufficient to produce an external Image. Hlstologlcally, the Imaged carotid specimen had abundant foam cells and macrophages and poorly organized Intramural blood consistent with a plaque hemorrhage; in contrast, nonlmaged endarterectomy specimens were mature, fibrocalclfic plaques. We conclude that: 1) 99mTc-LD L did accumulate In human atherosclerotic plaques; 2) In some patients, the accumulation of 99mTc-LD L was sufficient for detection by gamma camera Imaging; 3) the amount of LDL that accumulated appeared to depend on lesion composition; and 4) the design of new radlopharmaceutlcals with reduced residual blood pool activity relative to plaque accumulation should lead to Improved external Imaging of atherosclerosis.
Lexicalization in Crosslinguistic Probabilistic Parsing: The Case of French

This paper presents the first probabilistic parsing results for French, using the recently released French Treebank. We start with an unlexicalized PCFG as a baseline model, which is enriched to the level of Collins' Model 2 by adding lexicalization and subcategorization. The lexicalized sister-head model and a bigram model are also tested, to deal with the flatness of the French Treebank. The bigram model achieves the best performance: 81% constituency F-score and 84% dependency accuracy. All lexicalized models outperform the unlexicalized baseline, consistent with probabilistic parsing results for English, but contrary to results for German, where lexicalization has only a limited effect on parsing performance.
A multitask approach to continuous five-dimensional affect sensing in natural speech

Automatic affect recognition is important for the ability of future technical systems to interact with us socially in an intelligent way by understanding our current affective state. In recent years there has been a shift in the field of affect recognition from “in the lab” experiments with acted data to “in the wild” experiments with spontaneous and naturalistic data. Two major issues thereby are the proper segmentation of the input and adequate description and modeling of affective states. The first issue is crucial for responsive, real-time systems such as virtual agents and robots, where the latency of the analysis must be as small as possible. To address this issue we introduce a novel method of incremental segmentation to be used in combination with supra-segmental modeling. For modeling of continuous affective states we use Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks, with which we can show an improvement in performance over standard recurrent neural networks and feed-forward neural networks as well as Support Vector Regression. For experiments we use the SEMAINE database, which contains recordings of spontaneous and natural human to Wizard-of-Oz conversations. The recordings are annotated continuously in time and magnitude with FeelTrace for five affective dimensions, namely activation, expectation, intensity, power/dominance, and valence. To exploit dependencies between the five affective dimensions we investigate multitask learning of all five dimensions augmented with inter-rater standard deviation. We can show improvements for multitask over single-task modeling. Correlation coefficients of up to 0.81 are obtained for the activation dimension and up to 0.58 for the valence dimension. The performance for the remaining dimensions were found to be in between that for activation and valence.
The PCR ampli¢cation of non-tuberculous mycobacterial 16S rRNA sequences from soil

Non-tuberculous mycobacteria are free living saprophytic organisms commonly found in soil and water. Some are major causes of opportunistic infection, particularly in immuno-compromised patients, and may influence the efficacy of bacille Calmette-Gue ¤ rin vaccinations. Many of these organisms are not amenable to culture, so information about their distribution is limited. PCR primers designed to amplify part of the mycobacterial 16S rRNA gene were applied to DNA extracted from cultured organisms and soil. The PCR products from soil contained sequences with similarity to slow growing mycobacteria similar to Mycobacterium lentiflavum , and to fast growing mycobacteria such as the xenobiotic degraders PYR-I and RJGII. (cid:223) 2000 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
A Ubiquitous Supervisory System Based on Social Context Awareness

We propose a supervisory system that deals with actual situations and social aspects of users in ubiquitous computing environment in this paper. To realize a gentle and safe supervision, we have to consider social relationships between observers and the watched person to give adequate level of privacy to the services. We propose "uEyes", a ubiquitous supervisory system that introduces a new feature for the supervision, i.e., social context awareness. By using this feature, environmental information acquired from real world and knowledge on social activities of people are integrated effectively. From experimental results using a prototype of uEyes for supervising elderly people, we show that the social context awareness, as well as other components of the system, effectively works to support the supervision.
Relation of endometrial cancer risk to past and contemporary body size and body fat distribution.

In a multicenter case-control study that included 403 cases and 297 controls, we examined the relation of past and contemporary body size, including body fat distribution, to the risk of endometrial cancer. The relative contributions of past and contemporary body size were assessed by examining weight and height histories provided by the subjects. Anthropometric indicators thought to reflect early environmental influences (e.g., height and sitting height), current weight, and fat distribution patterns were measured directly. Height was not a risk factor for endometrial cancer, but inexplicably, sitting height was inversely associated with risk. Weight during early adulthood appeared to be directly related to disease risk, but the association was explained by contemporary weight and thus weight gain during adulthood. While contemporary weight was associated with risk of endometrial cancer, the effect was restricted to those in the top quartile. Women whose measured weight at interview exceeded 78 kg had 2.3 times the risk of those weighing less than 58 kg (95% confidence interval, 1.4 to 3.7). Upper-body obesity (waist-to-thigh circumference ratio) was a risk factor independent of body weight. After adjustment for weight, the relative risks of endometrial cancer across increasing quartiles of upper-body obesity were 1.0, 1.5, 1.8, and 2.6 (P for trend < 0.001). These data indicate that both obesity and the distribution of adipose tissue accumulated during adult life increase endometrial cancer risk substantially.
Clinical features and management of amoebic liver abscesses in a rural teaching hospital-A cross-sectional study , Sangareddy

Background: Liver abscess is a major health problem in tropical and subtropical regions. Aim: The present study aimed to evaluate the clinical profile, management of amoebic liver abscess patients. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Department of Surgery MNR Medical College Hospital, Sangareddy over a period of 2 years from June 2014 to July 2016. A total of 100 patients with liver abscess were included in this study. Clinical examination, detail case history, ultrasonography reports, case management and outcome were recorded during study. Results: Among 100 patients, 88 were males and 12 were females. Majority of cases were belongs to the age group of 30 -40 years (45%). Most common clinical features of amoebic liver abscess was fever (89%), abdominal pain (78%) and diarrhoea (37%). The major signs were hepatomegaly (87%), right lobe abscess (68%), left lobe abscess (36%) and pleural effusion (18%). Mortality rate was 3% out of 100 patients. Madhu Mohan Reddy B, Rajanikanth Amrutham, Nagababu Pyadala. Clinical features and management of amoebic liver abscesses in a rural teaching hospital A cross-sectional study, Sangareddy. IAIM, 2016; 3(10): 235-238. Page 236 Conclusion: According to our study percutaneous needle aspiration with antiprotozoal drugs showed better results for the management of amoebic liver abscess.
Validation of the use of POSSUM score in enteric perforation peritonitis - results of a prospective study

Introduction The objective of the study was to present our last 5-years experience of peritonitis and validate POSSUM score in predicting mortality and morbidity in patients of enteric perforation (EP) peritonitis. Methods Data was collected prospectively for all peritonitis cases admitted in single surgical unit from January 2005 to December 2009. Parameters for calculating POSSUM were also retrieved; in these patients, O:E (Observed vs. Expected) ratio of mortality and morbidity were estimated after calculating predicted mortality and morbidity by exponential regression equations. Results 887 patients with peritonitis were admitted and treated in this unit during the 5 years of study period. Duodenal (n=431; 48%) followed by ileal (n=380; 42.8%) perforations were the commonest. Mean age of the patients was 34 years and 86% were males. Mean delay in presentation was 78.5 hrs. Mean duration of hospital and ICU stay was 13 and 7.2 days. Postoperative complications were seen in 481 (54%) patients, and 90 (10%) patients died. POSSUM scores and predicted mortality/morbidity were calculated in 380 patients of ileal perforation peritonitis; O:E ratio of mortality and morbidity were 0.47 and 0.85 in these patients. Conclusion POSSUM and P-POSSUM are accurate tools for predicting morbidity and mortality respectively in EP patients. Though they may sometime over or under predict morbidity as well as mortality.
Source (or Part of the following Source): Type Article Title Stimulus Generalization and Return of Fear in C57bl/6j Mice Author(s) Stimulus Generalization and Return of Fear in C57bl/6j Mice

Copyright It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content licence (like Creative Commons). UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (http://dare.uva.nl) Return of fear following successful exposure therapy is a common problem. More insight into the characteristics of extinction learning is crucial in enhancing the efficiency of therapeutic interventions. In particular, understanding the mechanisms that underlie the generalization of extinction learning to other discrete stimuli is indispensable. Presently, little is known about the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. In this study, we attempt to develop a new conditioning protocol to study return of fear, caused by a stimulus change after extinction, in the most commonly used mouse strain of behavioral genetics, C57BL/6J. Perceptual changes to an auditory fear conditioned stimulus led to return of fear after initially successful fear-reduction, relative to appropriate control treatment. We argue that this protocol will be a useful tool to unravel the neurobiological underpinnings that regulate generalization of extinction and return of fear. Key questions for future research include the identification of crucial brain structures, neurotransmitters and signaling pathways that underly this behavioral phenomenon. Arguably, such research will open up new perspectives for neurobiological therapy augmentation.
An ultra-fast instruction set simulator

In this paper, we present new techniques which further improve the static compilation-based instruction set architecture (ISA) simulation by the aggressive utilization of the host machine resources. Such utilization is achieved by defining a low-level code-generation interface specialized for ISA simulation, rather than the traditional approaches which use C as a code-generation interface. We are able to perform the simulation at a speed of up to 10/sup 2/ millions of simulated instructions per second (MIPS) on a 270 MHz Ultra-5 workstation. This result is only on average 1.6 times slower than the native execution on the host machine, the fastest to the best of our knowledge.
A resonant vibrating tactile probe for biomedical applications based on IPMC

In this paper preliminary results regarding a vibrating tactile sensor are presented. More specifically, two IPMC strips are used, one as actuator and one as sensor, that work together for the differentiation of tissues. In fact, the characteristics of the resonant vibrating IPMC system change with the applied load. This allows for calculating the parameters of the mechanical load, by measuring the IPMC sensor output signal. The sensing capabilities can be exploited in various biomedical applications, such as catheterism and surgical resection of tumors. The model and the preliminary experimental tests of the proposed probe are reported in the paper.
Mutations in POLE and survival of colorectal cancer patients – link to disease stage and treatment

Recent molecular profiling studies reported a new class of ultramutated colorectal cancers (CRCs), which are caused by exonuclease domain mutations (EDMs) in DNA polymerase ϵ (POLE). Data on the clinical implications of these findings as to whether these mutations define a unique CRC entity with distinct clinical outcome are lacking. We performed Sanger sequencing of the POLE exonuclease domain in 431 well‐characterized patients with microsatellite stable (MSS) CRCs of a population‐based patient cohort. Mutation data were analyzed for associations with major epidemiological, clinical, genetic, and pathological parameters including overall survival (OS) and disease‐specific survival (DSS). In 373 of 431 MSS CRC, all exons of the exonuclease domain were analyzable. Fifty‐four mutations were identified in 46 of these samples (12.3%). Besides already reported EDMs, we detected many new mutations in exons 13 and 14 (corresponding to amino acids 410–491) as well as in exon 9 and exon 11 (corresponding to aa 268–303 and aa 341–369). However, we did not see any significant associations of EDMs with clinicopathological parameters, including sex, age, tumor location and tumor stage, CIMP, KRAS, and BRAF mutations. While with a median follow‐up time of 5.0 years, survival analysis of the whole cohort revealed nonsignificantly different adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of 1.35 (95% CI: 0.82–2.25) and 1.44 (0.81–2.58) for OS and DSS indicating slightly impaired survival of patients with EDMs, subgroup analysis for patients with stage III/IV disease receiving chemotherapy revealed a statistically significantly increased adjusted HR (1.87; 95%CI: 1.02–3.44). In conclusion, POLE EDMs do not appear to define an entirely new clinically distinct disease entity in CRC but may have prognostic or predictive implications in CRC subgroups, whose significance remains to be investigated in future studies.
Alpha and Gamma Tocopherols in Cerebrospinal Fluid and Serum from Older, Male, Human Subjects

Objective: The major forms of vitamin E in human physiological fluids are alpha and gamma tocopherols which exhibit different biological activities under a variety of assay conditions. The goal of this study was to obtain indirect information about the transport of tocopherols across the blood/spinal fluid barrier by comparing the concentrations of alpha and gamma tocopherols in serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Methods: CSF and serum samples were obtained simultaneously from 28 human, male subjects excluding those with known pathology during the performance of spinal anesthesia procedures. The samples were centrifuged and frozen, and analyzed for tocopherols by HPLC with electrochemical detection. Results: The concentrations of alpha and gamma tocopherols in CSF correlated significantly with their respective concentrations in serum. This would be expected since these nutrients have to be supplied by diet to serum followed by transport to the brain. The ratios of alpha to gamma tocopherols in the CSF and serum were highly correlated. High concentrations of alpha in serum tended to suppress gamma in both serum and CSF. Conclusions: These data suggest that the processes involved in the entry of tocopherol from blood to the CSF do not discriminate between the alpha and gamma tocopherols. In contrast, alpha tocopherol is highly preferred during the packaging of plasma lipoproteins by the liver. Our data also suggest that alpha and gamma tocopherols will be available to the human brain via transport from blood.
Effect of Natural Polymorphisms in the HIV-1 CRF02_AG Protease on Protease Inhibitor Hypersusceptibility

ABSTRACT Hypersusceptibility (HS) to inhibition by different antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) among diverse HIV-infected individuals may be a misnomer because clinical response to treatment is evaluated in relation to subtype B infections while drug susceptibility of the infecting virus, regardless of subtype, is compared to a subtype B HIV-1 laboratory strain (NL4-3 or IIIB). Mounting evidence suggests that HS to different ARVs may result in better treatment outcome just as drug resistance leads to treatment failure. We have identified key amino acid polymorphisms in the protease coding region of a non-B HIV-1 subtype linked to protease inhibitor HS, namely, 17E and 64M in CRF02_AG. These HS-linked polymorphisms were introduced in the BD6-15 CRF02_AG molecular clone and tested for inhibition using a panel of protease inhibitors. In general, suspected HS-linked polymorphisms did increase susceptibility to specific protease inhibitors such as amprenavir and atazanavir, but the combination of the 17E/64M polymorphisms showed greater HS. These two mutations were found at low frequencies but linked in a sequence database of over 700 protease sequences of CRF02_AG. In direct head-to-head virus competitions, CRF02_AG harboring the 17E/64M polymorphisms also had higher replicative fitness than did the 17E or the 64M polymorphism in the CFR02_AG clone. These findings suggest that subtype-specific, linked polymorphisms can result in hypersusceptibility to ARVs. Considering the potential benefit of HS to treatment outcome, screening for potential HS-linked polymorphisms as well as preexisting drug resistance mutations in treatment-naïve patients may guide the choice of ARVs for the best treatment outcome.
Flow Impairment by Deposited Sulfur - A Review of 50 Years of Research

Abstract Sulfur deposition in the reservoir formation and its impact on well productivity and ultimate recovery has been investigated for close to 50 years. Experimental measurements and numerical modeling studies have focused on the phase behavior of the sulfur-sour gas mixture system and the flow of sulfur and natural gas through the formation. The key results from these investigations are reviewed in this paper. The implementation of the insights gained over these 50 years of research into the field development planning and operation of sour gas fields is described.
Phenolic Composition, Antioxidant Activity and Anti-Adipogenic Effect of Hot Water Extract from Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) Seed

This study was to evaluate the phenolic content and composition of Carthamus tinctorius L. seed extract (CSE) and to further assess its antioxidant and anti-adipogenic activities using various radical scavenging systems and 3T3-L1 cells. Our results show that the total phenolic and flavonoid contents of CSE were 126.0 ± 2.4 mg GAE/g and 62.2 ± 1.9 mg QE/g, respectively. The major phenolic compounds in CSE was (−)-epigallocatechin (109.62 mg/g), with a 4-hydroxy benzhydrazide derivative and gallocatechin present at 18.28 mg/g and 17.02 mg/g, respectively. CSE exhibited remarkable radical scavenging activities, FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power) and reducing power in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) value of CSE (0.1 mg/mL) was 62.9 ± 4.7 μM TE (trolox equivalent)/g. During adipogenesis, CSE significantly inhibited fat accumulation in 3T3-L1 cells compared with control cells. Overall, these results indicate that CSE might be a valuable source of bioactive compounds that impart functional food and natural antioxidant properties.
Using Lexical Expansion to Learn Inference Rules from Sparse Data

Automatic acquisition of inference rules for predicates is widely addressed by computing distributional similarity scores between vectors of argument words. In this scheme, prior work typically refrained from learning rules for low frequency predicates associated with very sparse argument vectors due to expected low reliability. To improve the learning of such rules in an unsupervised way, we propose to lexically expand sparse argument word vectors with semantically similar words. Our evaluation shows that lexical expansion significantly improves performance in comparison to state-of-the-art baselines.
Hippocampal lesions impair spatial memory performance, but not song—A developmental study of independent memory systems in the zebra finch

Songbirds demonstrate song‐ and spatial‐learning, forms of memory that appear distinct in formal characteristics and fitting the descriptions and criteria of procedural and episodic‐like memory function, respectively. As in other vertebrates, the neural pathways underlying these forms of memory may also be dissociable, and include the corresponding song circuit and hippocampus (HP). Whether (or not) these two memory systems interact is unknown. Interestingly, the HP distinguishes itself as a site of immediate early gene expression in response to song and as a site of estrogen synthesis, a steroid involved in song learning. Thus, an interaction between these memory systems and their anatomical substrates appears reasonable to hypothesize, particularly during development. To test this idea, juvenile male or female zebra finches received chemical lesions of the HP at various points during song learning, as did adults. Song structure, singing behavior, song preference, and spatial memory were tested in adulthood. Although lesions of the HP severely compromised HP‐dependent spatial memory function across all ages and in both sexes, we were unable to detect any effects of HP lesions on song learning, singing, or song structure in males. Interestingly, females lesioned as adults, but not as juveniles, did lose the characteristic preference for their father's song. Since compromise of the neural circuits that subserve episodic‐like memory does very little (if anything) to affect procedural‐like (song learning) memory, we conclude that these memory systems and their anatomical substrates are well dissociated in the developing male zebra finch. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 2009