Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Meningeal Melanocytes in the Mouse: Distribution and Dependence on Mitf

Summary: Melanocytes are pigment producing cells derived from the neural crest. They are primarily found in the skin and hair follicles, but can also be found in other tissues including the eye, ear and heart. Here, we describe the distribution of pigmented cells in C57BL/6J mouse meninges, the membranes that envelope the brain. These cells contain melanosomes of all four stages of development and they depend on Microphthalmia associated transcription factor (MITF), the master regulator of melanocyte development, suggesting that they are bona-fide melanocytes. The location of these pigmented cells is consistent with the location of meningeal melanomas in humans and animal models. Significance: Here, we document and define pigmented cells in the meninges of the mouse brain and confirm that they are melanocytes. This is important for understanding the role of this cell type and for understanding primary meningeal melanoma, a rare disease that likely arises from normal meningeal melanocytes.
Multidrug-Resistant and Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Hog Slaughter and Processing Plant Workers and Their Community in North Carolina (USA)

Background: Use of antimicrobials in industrial food-animal production is associated with the presence of antimicrobial-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) among animals and humans. Hog slaughter/processing plants process large numbers of animals from industrial animal operations and are environments conducive to the exchange of bacteria between animals and workers. Objectives: We compared the prevalence of multidrug-resistant S. aureus (MDRSA) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) carriage among processing plant workers, their household members, and community residents. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of hog slaughter/processing plant workers, their household members, and community residents in North Carolina. Participants responded to a questionnaire and provided a nasal swab. Swabs were tested for S. aureus, and isolates were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility and subjected to multilocus sequence typing. Results: The prevalence of S. aureus was 21.6%, 30.2%, and 22.5% among 162 workers, 63 household members, and 111 community residents, respectively. The overall prevalence of MDRSA and MRSA tested by disk diffusion was 6.9% and 4.8%, respectively. The adjusted prevalence of MDRSA among workers was 1.96 times (95% CI: 0.71, 5.45) the prevalence in community residents. The adjusted average number of antimicrobial classes to which S. aureus isolates from workers were resistant was 2.54 times (95% CI: 1.16, 5.56) the number among isolates from community residents. We identified two MDRSA isolates and one MRSA isolate from workers as sequence type 398, a type associated with exposure to livestock. Conclusions: Although the prevalence of S. aureus and MRSA was similar in hog slaughter/processing plant workers and their household and community members, S. aureus isolates from workers were resistant to a greater number of antimicrobial classes. These findings may be related to the nontherapeutic use of antimicrobials in food-animal production. Citation: Castillo Neyra R, Frisancho JA, Rinsky JL, Resnick C, Carroll KC, Rule AM, Ross T, You Y, Price LB, Silbergeld EK. 2014. Multidrug-resistant and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in hog slaughter and processing plant workers and their community in North Carolina (USA). Environ Health Perspect 122:471–477; http://dx.doi. org/10.1289/ehp.1306741
The connexin mimetic peptide Gap27 increases human dermal fibroblast migration in hyperglycemic and hyperinsulinemic conditions in vitro

Significant increases in skin wound healing rates occur by reducing connexin‐mediated communication (CMC). Gap27, a connexin (Cx) mimetic peptide targeted to the second extracellular loop of Cx43, which inhibits CMC, increases migration of human keratinocytes and dermal fibroblasts. To examine the efficacy of Gap27 in a hyperglycemic and hyperinsulinemic in vitro environment, cell migration, gap junction, and Cx hemichannel functionality and cell–substrate adhesion assays were performed on human dermal fibroblasts and diabetic fibroblast and keratinocytes. To investigate fibroblast genes involved in these processes, extra‐cellular matrix (ECM) and adhesion gene expression was determined with a PCR array. Gap27 increased fibroblast migration in both euglycemia/euinsulinemia and hyperglycemia/hyperinsulinemia, and influenced migration in diabetic keratinocytes. Hyperglycemia/hyperinsulinemia reduced gap junction coupling in fibroblasts and Gap27 reduced CMC and cell adhesion to substrata in fibroblasts cultured in high glucose. Migrating dermal fibroblast ECM and cell adhesion genes were found to be differentially regulated by Gap27 in euglycemia and hyperglycemia. The PCR array showed that Gap27 upregulated 34 genes and downregulated 1 gene in euglycemic migrating fibroblasts. By contrast in hyperglycemia, Gap27 upregulated 1 gene and downregulated 9 genes. In euglycemic conditions, Gap27 induced upregulation of genes associated with ECM remodeling, whereas in hyperglycemia, ECM component genes were downregulated by Gap27. Thus, Gap27 improves cell migration during scrape‐wound repair in hyperglycemia/hyperinsulinemia conditions in vitro, although migration of diabetic cells is less influenced. Our results suggest that this increase in motility may occur by decreasing gap junction and hemichannel activity and altering gene expression in the adhesion and ECM pathway. J. Cell. Physiol. 227: 77–87, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Stable Approximation of Unstable Transfer Function Models

The result of a system identification experiment is usually a parametric continuous-time (s-domain) or discrete-time (z-domain) model. Due to noise on the measurements and/or nonlinear distortions, this model can be unstable. If an additional delay is added to the unstable system, then experience shows that a stable approximation with small approximation error can be obtained. In this paper, a new numerical algorithm is proposed for finding a delay that gives a stable result. Contrary to classical approaches, it needs fewer gradientlike steps during the approximation process.
Algebraic evaluation of rational polynomials in one-loop amplitudes

One-loop amplitudes are to a large extent determined by their unitarity cuts in four dimensions. We show that the remaining rational terms can be obtained from the ultraviolet behaviour of the amplitude, and determine universal form factors for these rational parts by applying reduction techniques to the Feynman diagrammatic representation of the amplitude. The method is valid for massless and massive internal particles. We illustrate this method by evaluating the rational terms of the one-loop amplitudes for gg→H, γγ→γγ, gg→gg,γγ→ggg and γγ→γγγγ.
Shoulder Functional Performance Status of National Collegiate Athletic Association Swimmers

Background: Shoulder trouble, described in the literature as “swimmer’s shoulder,” has been associated with competitive swimmers. The Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic (KJOC) Shoulder and Elbow Score is a validated survey used to define functional and performance measures of the upper extremity in overhead athletes. To date, no study has investigated the baseline functional scores for swimmers actively competing in the sport. Purpose: To establish a baseline score for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimmers actively competing in the sport. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: After institutional review board approval, the KJOC Shoulder and Elbow Score was administered to 5 NCAA swim teams (N = 99 participants; 46 men, 53 women). The results on 10 specific individual questions and on the total score were calculated according to the survey’s original description. The mean scores were calculated for all participants. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to determine differences between sexes, years swimming, and self-reported injury status. Results: The mean ± SD baseline KJOC score (out of a possible 100) for all participants was 79.0 ± 18.7; the mean score for men was 81.9 ± 15.6 and for women 76.6 ± 20.8. The score for athletes identifying themselves as injured at baseline was 53.9 ± 18.8, compared with 84.4 ± 13.6 for those not reporting as injured (P < .001). Athletes competing ≥11 years had a mean score of 72.0 ± 22.1; those competing ≤10 years scored 86.4 ± 11.4 (P = .007). Conclusion: Baseline scores for swimmers, which were lower than expected, were lower than baseline scores seen in studies of other overhead sports athletes. The data corroborate previous studies identifying swimmers as having a high level of shoulder trouble. Further research is indicated for improving shoulder symptoms and performance in competitive swimmers.
Close binary and other variable stars in the solar-age Galactic open cluster M 67

We present multi-colour time-series CCD photometry of the solar-age galactic open cluster M 67 (NGC 2682). About 3600 frames spread over 28 nights were obtained with the 1.5 m Russian-Turkish and 1.2 m Mercator telescopes. High-precision observations of the close binary stars AH Cnc, EV Cnc, ES Cnc, the δ Scuti type systems EX Cnc and EW Cnc, and some long-period variables belonging to M 67 are presented. Three full multi-colour light curves of the overcontact binary AH Cnc were obtained during three observing seasons. Likewise we gathered three light curves of EV Cnc, an EB-type binary, and two light curves of ES Cnc, a blue straggler binary. Parts of the light change of long-term variables S 1024, S 1040, S 1045, S 1063, S 1242, and S 1264 are obtained. Period variation analysis of AH Cnc, EV Cnc, and ES Cnc were done using all times of mid-eclipse available in the literature and those obtained in this study. In addition, we analyzed multi-colour light curves of the close binaries and also determined new frequencies for the δ Scuti systems. The physical parameters of the close binary stars were determined with simultaneous solutions of multi-colour light and radial velocity curves. Finally we determined the distance of M 67 as 857(33) pc via binary star parameters, which is consistent with an independent method from earlier studies.
Compact Rule Extraction for Hierarchical Phrase-based Translation

This paper introduces two novel approaches for extracting compact grammars for hierarchical phrase-based translation. The first is a combinatorial optimization approach and the second is a Bayesian model over Hiero grammars using Variational Bayes for inference. In contrast to the conventional Hiero (Chiang, 2007) rule extraction algorithm , our methods extract compact models reducing model size by 17.8% to 57.6% without impacting translation quality across several language pairs. The Bayesian model is particularly effective for resource-poor languages with evidence from Korean-English translation. To our knowledge, this is the first alternative to Hiero-style rule extraction that finds a more compact synchronous grammar without hurting translation performance.
An Analysis Of Random Number Generators For A Hardware Implementation Of Genetic Programming Using FPGAs And Handel-C

This paper analyses the effect of using different random number generators (RNG) in a hardware implementation of Genetic Programming using Field Programmable Gate Arrays. Hardware systems have typically used RNGs based on Logical Feedback Shift Registers or Cellular Automata. Different configurations of these generators are evaluated as well as using a source of true random numbers and a standard multiply/add generator. The results show that using a more sophisticated generator than a simple LFSR slightly improves the performance of GP.
Reformulating the Situation Calculus and the Event Calculus in the General Theory of Stable Models and in Answer Set Programming

Circumscription and logic programs under the stable model semantics are two wellknown nonmonotonic formalisms. The former has served as a basis of classical logic based action formalisms, such as the situation calculus, the event calculus and temporal action logics; the latter has served as a basis of a family of action languages, such as language A and several of its descendants. Based on the discovery that circumscription and the stable model semantics coincide on a class of canonical formulas, we reformulate the situation calculus and the event calculus in the general theory of stable models. We also present a translation that turns the reformulations further into answer set programs, so that efficient answer set solvers can be applied to compute the situation calculus and the event calculus.
The Impact of IT Governance on IT Capability and Firm Performance

Drawing upon the resource-based theory of IT business value research, a firm’s ability to effectively integrate and deploy IT resources in combination with other resources, can create unique competitive advantage and intangible assets for a company. This study aims to investigate the impact of IT governance on IT capability, and the effects of both IT governance and IT capability on firms' sustainable competitive advantage. We hypothesize that both IT governance and IT capability are positively related to firm performance, and IT governance is positively linked to IT capability. A research model is proposed.
Diversifying Top-K Results

Top-k query processing finds a list of k results that have largest scores w.r. t the user given query, with the assumption that all the k results are independent to each other. In practice, some of the top-k results returned can be very similar to each other. As a result some of the top-k results returned are redundant. In the literature, diversified top-k search has been studied to return k results that take both score and diversity into consideration. Most existing solutions on diversified top-k search assume that scores of all the search results are given, and some works solve the diversity problem on a specific problem and can hardly be extended to general cases. In this paper, we study the diversified top-k search problem. We define a general diversified top-k search problem that only considers the similarity of the search results themselves. We propose a framework, such that most existing solutions for top-k query processing can be extended easily to handle diversified top-k search, by simply applying three new functions, a sufficient stop condition sufficient(), a necessary stop condition necessary(), and an algorithm for diversified top-k search on the current set of generated results, div-search-current(). We propose three new algorithms, namely, div-astar, div-dp, and div-cut to solve the div-search-current() problem. div-astar is an A* based algorithm, div-dp is an algorithm that decomposes the results into components which are searched using div-astar independently and combined using dynamic programming. div-cut further decomposes the current set of generated results using cut points and combines the results using sophisticated operations. We conducted extensive performance studies using two real datasets, enwiki and reuters. Our div-cut algorithm finds the optimal solution for diversified top-k search problem in seconds even for k as large as 2, 000.
SmartVLC: When Smart Lighting Meets VLC

Visible Light Communication (VLC) based on LEDs has been a hot topic investigated for over a decade. However, most of the research efforts in this area assume the intensity of the light emitted from LEDs is constant. This is not true any more when Smart Lighting is introduced to VLC in recent years, which requires the LEDs to adapt their brightness according to the intensity of the natural ambient light. Smart lighting saves power consumption and improves user comfort. However, intensity adaptation severely affects the throughput performance of the data communication. In this paper, we propose SmartVLC, a system that can maximize the throughput (benefit communication) while still maintaining the LEDs' illumination function (benefit smart lighting). A new adaptive multiple pulse position modulation scheme is proposed to support fine-grained dimming levels to avoid flickering and at the same time, maximize the throughput under each dimming level. SmartVLC is implemented on low-cost commodity hardware and several real-life challenges in both hardware and software are addressed to make SmartVLC a robust realtime system. Comprehensive experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of SmartVLC under multifaceted scenarios. The results demonstrate that SmartVLC supports a communication distance up to 3.6m, and improves the throughput achieved with two state-of-the-art approaches by 40% and 12% on average, respectively, without bringing any flickering to users.
Detection of Carotid Artery Stenosis by In Vivo Duplex Ultrasound: Correlation With Planimetric Measurements of the Corresponding Postmortem Specimens

Background and Purpose— The correct detection and quantification of carotid artery disease are of decisive impact on patient prognosis and adequate treatment. In this study, we evaluated the ability of ultrasonography to detect and to grade carotid artery stenosis through a comparison of the in vivo ultrasound findings with the planimetric analysis of the corresponding postmortem specimens. Methods— Shortly before their death, 59 critically ill neurological patients (mean age, 70 years) were prospectively examined by extracranial and intracranial Doppler sonography and color-coded duplex ultrasound. Carotid stenosis was classified by hemodynamic and morphological ultrasound criteria. Carotid specimens were removed in toto during autopsy. Under standardized conditions, specimens were redistended, sectioned, and histologically processed. Computerized planimetric measurements of the arteries were carried out and compared with the ultrasound findings. Correlation of the ultrasound and postmortem planimetric findings was available in 93 carotid bifurcations. Results— Through both techniques, 46 carotid arteries were found to be normal. Steno-occlusive carotid lesions ranged from 8.5% to 100% lumen reduction. Overall, r =0.96 and adjusted R2=0.90. For the steno-occlusive carotid lesions, r =0.91. Conclusions— Extracranial and intracranial Doppler and color-coded duplex ultrasound permits reliable detection and quantification of carotid artery stenoses and occlusions even under difficult examination conditions in critically ill patients.
Tight Space-Approximation Tradeoff for the Multi-Pass Streaming Set Cover Problem

We study the classic set cover problem in the streaming model: the sets that comprise the instance are revealed one by one in a stream and the goal is to solve the problem by making one or few passes over the stream while maintaining a sublinear space o(mn) in the input size; here m denotes the number of the sets and n is the universe size. Notice that in this model, we are mainly concerned with the space requirement of the algorithms and hence do not restrict their computation time. Our main result is a resolution of the space-approximation tradeoff for the streaming set cover problem: we show that any α-approximation algorithm for the set cover problem requires Ω(mn1/α) space, even if it is allowed polylog(n) passes over the stream, and even if the sets are arriving in a random order in the stream. This space-approximation tradeoff matches the best known bounds achieved by the recent algorithm of Har-Peled et.al. (PODS 2016) that requires only O(α) passes over the stream in an adversarial order, hence settling the space complexity of approximating the set cover problem in data streams in a quite robust manner. Additionally, our approach yields tight lower bounds for the space complexity of (1- ε)-approximating the streaming maximum coverage problem studied in several recent works.
A prosody only decision-tree model for disfluency detection

Speech disfluencies (filled pauses, repetitions, repairs, a nd false starts) are pervasive in spontaneous speech. The ability to detect and correct disfluencies automatically is important for eff ective natural language understanding, as well as to improve speech models in general. Previous approaches to disfluency detect ion have relied heavily on lexical information, which makes them less applicable when word recognition is unreliable. We have developed a disfluency detection method using decision tree classifiers that use only local and automatically extracted pros odic features. Because the model doesn’t rely on lexical informa tion, it is widely applicable even when word recognition is unreliable. The model performed significantly better than chance a t detecting four disfluency types. It also outperformed a lang uage model in the detection of false starts, given the correct tra nscription. Combining the prosody model with a specialized language model improved accuracy over either model alone for the detection of false starts. Results suggest that a prosody-only mo del can aid the automatic detection of disfluencies in spontaneo us speech.
LEADERSHIP STYLES IN SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

A comparison of the effects of transactional and transformational leadership in synchronous and a synchronous online teamwork was conducted. In the study, groups of four participants interacted in online text chat and online text forum in problem solving tasks. The groups were leaded by a confederate who acted as a transactional or a transformational leader. Satisfaction in the interactions and participations communicative styles were assessed. Results indicated that transformational leadership is more satisfying and cognitive and metacognitive style oriented than transactional leadership that is more participative style oriented.
Diffusion-weighted MR imaging offers no advantage over routine noncontrast MR imaging in the detection of vertebral metastases.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Diffusion-weighted MR imaging of the spine has been used to differentiate benign from pathologic vertebral body compression fractures. We sought to determine the utility of diffusion-weighted MR imaging in the detection of vertebral metastases and to compare it with conventional noncontrast T1- and T2-weighted MR imaging. METHODS Fifteen patients with metastases to the spine were studied using conventional MR imaging and diffusion-weighted imaging. Blinded review of all images was undertaken, and patients were categorized according to whether they had focal or multiple lesions. The signal intensity of the lesions was compared on T1-, T2- (fast spin-echo), and diffusion-weighted images. RESULTS In five patients with focal disease, metastases were hypointense on T1-weighted images; hypointense (n = 2), isointense (n = 1), or hyperintense (n = 2) on T2-weighted images; and hypointense (n = 3) or hyperintense (n = 2) on diffusion-weighted images with respect to presumed normal bone marrow. In 10 patients with disease in multiple sites, all lesions were hypointense on T1-weighted images; hypointense (n = 2), isointense (n = 4), hyperintense (n = 2), or mixed (n = 2) on T2-weighted images; and hypointense (n = 5), hyperintense (n = 3), or mixed (n = 2) on diffusion-weighted images with respect to presumed normal bone marrow. CONCLUSION As used in this study, diffusion-weighted MR imaging of the spine showed no advantage in the detection and characterization of vertebral metastases as compared with noncontrast T1-weighted imaging, but was considered superior to T2-weighted imaging.