Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Summarizing visual data using bidirectional similarity

We propose a principled approach to summarization of visual data (images or video) based on optimization of a well-defined similarity measure. The problem we consider is re-targeting (or summarization) of image/video data into smaller sizes. A good ldquovisual summaryrdquo should satisfy two properties: (1) it should contain as much as possible visual information from the input data; (2) it should introduce as few as possible new visual artifacts that were not in the input data (i.e., preserve visual coherence). We propose a bi-directional similarity measure which quantitatively captures these two requirements: Two signals S and T are considered visually similar if all patches of S (at multiple scales) are contained in T, and vice versa. The problem of summarization/re-targeting is posed as an optimization problem of this bi-directional similarity measure. We show summarization results for image and video data. We further show that the same approach can be used to address a variety of other problems, including automatic cropping, completion and synthesis of visual data, image collage, object removal, photo reshuffling and more.
Effects of bromocriptine on human subjects depend on working memory capacity

PHARMACOLOGICAL manipulation of brain dopamine concentration affects visuospatial working memory in humans and in animals, the latter effects localized to the prefrontal cortex. However, the effects of dopamine agonists on humans are poorly understood. We hypothesized that bromocriptine would have an effect on cognitive functions associated with the prefrontal cortex via its effects on cortical dopamine receptors and on subcortical receptors in areas that project to the neocortex. We found that the effect of bromocriptine on young normal subjects depended on the subjects' working memory capacity. High-capacity subjects performed more poorly on the drug, while low-capacity subjects improved. These results demonstrate an empirical link between a dopamine-mediated working memory system and higher cognitive function in humans.
G9a functions as a molecular scaffold for assembly of transcriptional coactivators on a subset of Glucocorticoid Receptor target genes

Histone H3 lysine-9 methyltransferase G9a/EHMT2/KMT1C is a key corepressor of gene expression. However, activation of a limited number of genes by G9a (independent of its catalytic activity) has also been observed, although the precise molecular mechanisms are unknown. By using RNAi in combination with gene expression microarray analysis, we found that G9a functions as a positive and a negative transcriptional coregulator for discrete subsets of genes that are regulated by the hormone-activated Glucocorticoid Receptor (GR). G9a was recruited to GR-binding sites (but not to the gene body) of its target genes and interacted with GR, suggesting recruitment of G9a by GR. In contrast to its corepressor function, positive regulation of gene expression by G9a involved G9a-mediated enhanced recruitment of coactivators CARM1 and p300 to GR target genes. Further supporting a role for G9a as a molecular scaffold for its coactivator function, the G9a-specific methyltransferase inhibitor UNC0646 did not affect G9a coactivator function but selectively decreased G9a corepressor function for endogenous target genes. Overall, G9a functioned as a coactivator for hormone-activated genes and as a corepressor in support of hormone-induced gene repression, suggesting that the positive or negative actions of G9a are determined by the gene-specific regulatory environment and chromatin architecture. These findings indicate distinct mechanisms of G9a coactivator vs. corepressor functions in transcriptional regulation and provide insight into the molecular mechanisms of G9a coactivator function. Our results also suggest a physiological role of G9a in fine tuning the set of genes that respond to glucocorticoids.
Antitumor and antimetastatic activity of interleukin 12 against murine tumors

It has recently been demonstrated that in vivo administration of murine interleukin 12 (IL-12) to mice results in augmentation of cytotoxic natural killer (NK)/lymphocyte-activated killer cell activity, enhancement of cytolytic T cell generation, and induction of interferon gamma secretion. In this study, the in vivo activity of murine IL-12 against a number of murine tumors has been evaluated. Experimental pulmonary metastases or subcutaneous growth of the B16F10 melanoma were markedly reduced in mice treated intraperitoneally with IL-12, resulting in an increase in survival time. The therapeutic effectiveness of IL-12 was dose dependent and treatment of subcutaneous tumors could be initiated up to 14 d after injection of tumor cells. Likewise, established experimental hepatic metastases and established subcutaneous M5076 reticulum cell sarcoma and Renca renal cell adenocarcinoma tumors were effectively treated by IL-12 at doses which resulted in no gross toxicity. Local peritumoral injection of IL-12 into established subcutaneous Renca tumors resulted in regression and complete disappearance of these tumors. IL-12 was as effective in NK cell-deficient beige mice or in mice depleted of NK cell activity by treatment with antiasialo GM1, suggesting that NK cells are not the primary cell type mediating the antitumor effects of this cytokine. However, the efficacy of IL-12 was greatly reduced in nude mice suggesting the involvement of T cells. Furthermore, depletion of CD8+ but not CD4+ T cells significantly reduced the efficacy of IL-12. These results demonstrate that IL-12 has potent in vivo antitumor and antimetastatic effects against murine tumors and demonstrate as well the critical role of CD8+ T cells in mediating the antitumor effects against subcutaneous tumors.
Effects of Gestational and Postnatal Exposure to Chronic Intermittent Hypoxia on Diaphragm Muscle Contractile Function in the Rat

Alterations to the supply of oxygen during early life presents a profound stressor to physiological systems with aberrant remodeling that is often long-lasting. Chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH) is a feature of apnea of prematurity, chronic lung disease, and sleep apnea. CIH affects respiratory control but there is a dearth of information concerning the effects of CIH on respiratory muscles, including the diaphragm—the major pump muscle of breathing. We investigated the effects of exposure to gestational CIH (gCIH) and postnatal CIH (pCIH) on diaphragm muscle function in male and female rats. CIH consisted of exposure in environmental chambers to 90 s of hypoxia reaching 5% O2 at nadir, once every 5 min, 8 h a day. Exposure to gCIH started within 24 h of identification of a copulation plug and continued until day 20 of gestation; animals were studied on postnatal day 22 or 42. For pCIH, pups were born in normoxia and within 24 h of delivery were exposed with dams to CIH for 3 weeks; animals were studied on postnatal day 22 or 42. Sham groups were exposed to normoxia in parallel. Following gas exposures, diaphragm muscle contractile, and endurance properties were examined ex vivo. Neither gCIH nor pCIH exposure had effects on diaphragm muscle force-generating capacity or endurance in either sex. Similarly, early life exposure to CIH did not affect muscle tolerance of severe hypoxic stress determined ex vivo. The findings contrast with our recent observation of upper airway dilator muscle weakness following exposure to pCIH. Thus, the present study suggests a relative resilience to hypoxic stress in diaphragm muscle. Co-ordinated activity of thoracic pump and upper airway dilator muscles is required for optimal control of upper airway caliber. A mismatch in the force-generating capacity of the complementary muscle groups could have adverse consequences for the control of airway patency and respiratory homeostasis.
The epidemiology of poliomyelitis: enigmas surrounding its appearance, epidemicity, and disappearance.

The emergence of a debate in the US regarding poliomyelitis immunization practices makes it important to examine unresolved issues about the epidemiology of this disease. The literature suggests that poliomyelitis initially appears as a disease of preschool children, but then there is a trend toward increasing age of cases. Age differences in the case: infection ratio do not appear to have a consistent, predictable impact on overall incidence. The appearance of epidemic poliomyelitis is assumed to have resulted from a reduction in levels of maternal antibodies as booster reinfections became less common, a reduction in the frequency of antibody levels sufficient to produce cross-protection between virus types, and an increase in the average age of primary infections. The relative importance of virus virulence and of elevated infection rate in the production of epidemics remains unknown. The use of poliovirus vaccine in the US has reduced paralytic disease from an annual incidence of about 10,000 cases to 10 cases. The eradication of poliomyelitis in spite of the fact that no more than 90% of US children have been reached indicates that either vaccine virus has spread to the unimmunized or a herd immunity effect is operating and the resultant disappearance of wild poliovirus prevents exposure of the unimmunized. The unexpected eradication of natural poliomyelitis in the US has raised the problem of vaccine-associated disease when oral vaccine is used. Since oral poliovirus vaccine appears to have provided protection through herd immunity, any change in immunization practices that might increase the exposure of susceptibles should be undertaken with great caution. Evidence of repeated importations of wild poliovirus emphasizes this concern. If inactivated vaccine is seriously considered for primary immunization, it should be followed by reimmunization with oral vaccine.
The Efficient Server Audit Problem, Deduplicated Re-execution, and the Web

You put a program on a concurrent server, but you don't trust the server; later, you get a trace of the actual requests that the server received from its clients and the responses that it delivered. You separately get logs from the server; these are untrusted. How can you use the logs to efficiently verify that the responses were derived from running the program on the requests? This is the Efficient Server Audit Problem, which abstracts real-world scenarios, including running a web application on an untrusted provider. We give a solution based on several new techniques, including simultaneous replay and efficient verification of concurrent executions. We implement the solution for PHP web applications. For several applications, our verifier achieves 5.6-10.9x speedup versus simply re-executing, with <10% overhead for the server.
Detection of Clarithromycin-ResistantHelicobacter pylori Strains by a Preferential Homoduplex Formation Assay

ABSTRACT It has been shown that resistance to clarithromycin, a major cause of failure in Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy, is associated with point mutations in the 23S rRNA gene. We sought to apply the preferential homoduplex formation assay (PHFA), a novel technique for the efficient detection of point mutations, to detection of the mutations. PHFA was performed on streptavidin-coated microtiter plates with biotin- and dinitrophenyl-labeled amplicons to detect the wild-type gene or each mutant gene. DNA samples were extracted from gastric juice specimens of 412 patients with H. pyloriinfection and were applied to the assay. The detection threshold of PHFA was as few as 10 gene copies. The sensitivity of PHFA for the detection of H. pylori infection was higher than those of culture and the rapid urease test. A total of 337 (81.8%) samples had the wild-type gene, 38 (9.2%) had the A2144G mutation, and 37 (9.0%) contained both the wild type and a mutation (A2144G in 30 samples, A2143G in 5 samples, and A2143G plus A2144G in 2 samples). About half the strains isolated from patients with mixed infection were susceptible by the agar dilution method (MIC, <0.1 mg/liter). Therefore, PHFA can detect clarithromycin-resistant H. pylori strains, even in patients with mixed infections with the wild type, that are not detectable by the agar dilution method.
H63D polymorphism in the hemochromatosis gene is associated with sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in China

Background and purpose: The H63D polymorphism in the hemochromatosis (HFE) gene has been reported as a risk factor for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in Europe and America, but no data have been reported for Asia. Here, we investigated the possible association between H63D and sporadic ALS (sALS) in a Chinese Han population.
Research on annealing temperature in the process of MoS/sub 2/ nanostructure synthesis from nanoscale powder

To see the formation process of inorganic fullerene-like structures from MoS/sub 2/ the thermal annealing of superfine nanoscale MoS/sub 2/ powder was performed in neutral argon atmosphere. The grain size of MoS/sub 2/ powder is about 3 nm. The annealing temperature varied in the range of 500/spl deg/C-1000/spl deg/C, and the annealing time varied between 4 hours and 5 minutes for low and high annealing temperatures, respectively. PXRD and TEM analyses were made to observe the change of the character of the crystallization process and of the curvature of [002] MoS/sub 2/ planes. The rise of the annealing temperature leads to an increase of the crystalline phase and a simultaneous decrease of the amorphous phase in the MoS/sub 2/ powder. The sample annealed at T/sub ann/=500/spl deg/C reveals a weak curvature of the [002] planes, and the grains become larger as compared with the pristine MoS/sub 2/ powder. Increasing the annealing temperature up to T/sub ann/=700/spl deg/C leads to a stronger curvature of the [002] planes. The character of the curved planes varies from quite large planes with a large curvature radius up to U-shaped and rectangularly shaped structures. An increase of the annealing temperature up to T/sub ann/=1000/spl deg/C, finally, leads to a pronounced crystallization of the powder, with some part being left over in an amorphous phase.
Diffuse H I Disks in Isolated Galaxies

In order to investigate the contribution of diffuse components to their total H I emission, we have obtained high-precision H I line flux densities with the 100 m Green Bank Telescope for a sample of 100 isolated spiral and irregular galaxies which we have previously observed with the 43 m telescope. A comparison of the observed H I line fluxes obtained with the two different telescopes, characterized by half-power beam widths of 9′ and 21′, respectively, exploits a "beam-matching" technique to yield a statistical determination of the occurrence of diffuse H I components in their disks. A simple model of the H I distribution within a galaxy well describes ∼75% of the sample and accounts for all of the H I line flux density. The remaining galaxies are approximately evenly divided into two categories: those which appear to possess a significantly more extensive H I distribution than the model predicts, and those for which the H I distribution is more centrally concentrated than predicted. Examples of both extremes can be found in the literature, but little attention has been paid to the centrally concentrated H I systems. Our sample has demonstrated that galaxies do not commonly possess extended regions of low surface brightness H I gas which is not accounted for by our current understanding of the structure of H I disks. Eight H I-rich companions to the target objects are identified, and a set of extragalactic H I line flux density calibrators is presented.
Erythropoietin as a retinal angiogenic factor in proliferative diabetic retinopathy.

BACKGROUND Although vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a primary mediator of retinal angiogenesis, VEGF inhibition alone is insufficient to prevent retinal neovascularization. Hence, it is postulated that there are other potent ischemia-induced angiogenic factors. Erythropoietin possesses angiogenic activity, but its potential role in ocular angiogenesis is not established. METHODS We measured both erythropoietin and VEGF levels in the vitreous fluid of 144 patients with the use of radioimmunoassay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Vitreous proliferative potential was measured according to the growth of retinal endothelial cells in vitro and with soluble erythropoietin receptor. In addition, a murine model of ischemia-induced retinal neovascularization was used to evaluate erythropoietin expression and regulation in vivo. RESULTS The median vitreous erythropoietin level in 73 patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy was significantly higher than that in 71 patients without diabetes (464.0 vs. 36.5 mIU per milliliter, P<0.001). The median VEGF level in patients with retinopathy was also significantly higher than that in patients without diabetes (345.0 vs. 3.9 pg per milliliter, P<0.001). Multivariate logistic-regression analyses indicated that erythropoietin and VEGF were independently associated with proliferative diabetic retinopathy and that erythropoietin was more strongly associated with the presence of proliferative diabetic retinopathy than was VEGF. Erythropoietin and VEGF gene-expression levels are up-regulated in the murine ischemic retina, and the blockade of erythropoietin inhibits retinal neovascularization in vivo and endothelial-cell proliferation in the vitreous of patients with diabetic retinopathy in vitro. CONCLUSIONS Our data suggest that erythropoietin is a potent ischemia-induced angiogenic factor that acts independently of VEGF during retinal angiogenesis in proliferative diabetic retinopathy.
Effects of Prior Knowledge on Cognitive Learning Outcomes within an English Learning Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

This study developed an English learning online role-playing game targeting knowledge of vocabulary and sentence patterns, and conducted an experimental study of 55 aged 12 sixth-grade students using this game to investigate how the learner characteristic, in terms of prior English ability, influences cognitive learning outcomes. Although there have been studies examining the effectiveness of online games on cognitive learning outcomes in education, there is still little consensus on the learning effectiveness of game-based learning. Factors such as learner characteristics should be taken into consideration while designing educational games since individual differences may affect willingness of learners to better performance within a game-based learning environment. By analyzing the data collected from achievement tests, it was found in this study that students' prior knowledge could be a key factor that collectively influences the effectiveness of knowledge acquisition in game-based learning. The results of this study may help educators consider how effectively utilizing an MMORPG-based educational game for enhancing students' learning effectiveness in game-based learning.
A functioning kidney homotransplant in the dog.

A male beagle dog was given supralethal whole-body irradiation with Co/ sup 60/, 1300 r in a 12-hr period. Eight days after irradiation he received an infusion of homologous bone marrow from an unrelated female beagle. The marrow graft was successful. Female leukocytes appeared in the peripheral blood in normal number. Sixteen days after the marrow graft a kidney was transplanted from the female into the male. Ten days later the male's own kidneys were removed. Except for a brief period of adjustment, blood urea and electrolyte concentrations remained normal. The homotransplanted kidney functioned normally until the death of the animal from intercurrent pneumonic disease 49 days after kidney transplantation and 73 days after irradiation. At autopsy the homotransplanted kidney showed no gross or microscopic abnormality. (auth)
Differential prefrontal cortex and amygdala habituation to repeatedly presented emotional stimuli

Repeated presentations of emotional facial expressions were used to assess habituation in the human brain using fMRI. Significant fMRI signal decrement was present in the left dorsolateral prefrontal and premotor cortex, and right amygdala. Within the left prefrontal cortex greater habituation to happy vs fearful stimuli was evident, suggesting devotion of sustained neural resources for processing of threat vs safety signals. In the amygdala, significantly greater habituation was observed on the right compared to the left. In contrast, the left amygdala was significantly more activated than the right to the contrast of fear vs happy. We speculate that the right amygdala is part of a dynamic emotional stimulus detection system, while the left is specialized for sustained stimulus evaluations.
Dengue Virus Neutralizing Antibody Levels Associated with Protection from Infection in Thai Cluster Studies

Background Long-term homologous and temporary heterologous protection from dengue virus (DENV) infection may be mediated by neutralizing antibodies. However, neutralizing antibody titers (NTs) have not been clearly associated with protection from infection. Methodology/Principal Findings Data from two geographic cluster studies conducted in Kamphaeng Phet, Thailand were used for this analysis. In the first study (2004–2007), cluster investigations of 100-meter radius were triggered by DENV-infected index cases from a concurrent prospective cohort. Subjects between 6 months and 15 years old were evaluated for DENV infection at days 0 and 15 by DENV PCR and IgM ELISA. In the second study (2009–2012), clusters of 200-meter radius were triggered by DENV-infected index cases admitted to the provincial hospital. Subjects of any age ≥6 months were evaluated for DENV infection at days 0 and 14. In both studies, subjects who were DENV PCR positive at day 14/15 were considered to have been “susceptible” on day 0. Comparison subjects from houses in which someone had documented DENV infection, but the subject remained DENV negative at days 0 and 14/15, were considered “non-susceptible. ” Day 0 samples were presumed to be from just before virus exposure, and underwent plaque reduction neutralization testing (PRNT). Seventeen “susceptible” (six DENV-1, five DENV-2, and six DENV-4), and 32 “non-susceptible” (13 exposed to DENV-1, 10 DENV-2, and 9 DENV-4) subjects were evaluated. Comparing subjects exposed to the same serotype, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves identified homotypic PRNT titers of 11, 323 and 16 for DENV-1, -2 and -4, respectively, to differentiate “susceptible” from “non-susceptible” subjects. Conclusions/Significance PRNT titers were associated with protection from infection by DENV-1, -2 and -4. Protective NTs appeared to be serotype-dependent and may be higher for DENV-2 than other serotypes. These findings are relevant for both dengue epidemiology studies and vaccine development efforts.