Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Targeting the inhibitory receptor CTLA-4 on T cells increased abscopal effects in murine mesothelioma model

We previously demonstrated that blockade of immune suppressive CTLA-4 resulted in tumor growth delay when combined with chemotherapy in murine mesothelioma. Tumor-infiltrating T cells (TIT) after local radiotherapy (LRT) play critical roles in abscopal effect against cancer. We attempt to improve the local and abscopal effect by modulating T cell immunity with systemic blockade of CTLA-4 signal. The growth of primary tumors was significantly inhibited by LRT while CTLA-4 antibody enhanced the antitumor effect. Growth delay of the second tumors was achieved when the primary tumor was radiated. LRT resulted in more T cell infiltration into both tumors, including Treg and cytotoxic T cells. Interestingly, the proportion of Treg over effector T cells in both tumors was reversed after CTLA-4 blockade, while CD8 T cells were further activated. The expression of the immune-related genes was upregulated and cytokine production was significantly increased. LRT resulted in an increase of TIT, while CTLA-4 blockade led to significant reduction of Tregs and increase of cytotoxic T cells in both tumors. The abscopal effect is enhanced by targeting the immune checkpoints through modulation of T cell immune response in murine mesothelioma.
PREFORMED ELASTOMERIC BRIDGE JOINT SEALERS: THERMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BRIDGE END MOVEMENTS

THIS PAPER, THE THIRD IN A SERIES, PRESENTS CURRENT KNOWLEDGE ON THE THERMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A MASS, SUCH AS A CONCRETE DECK, AND ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HEAT TRANSFER. USING AN EMPIRICAL APPROACH, A METHOD FOR PREDICTING REASONABLY ACCURATE CONCRETE TEMPERATURES IS GIVEN. INFORMATION IS INCLUDED ON THE SUBJECTS OF ACTUAL TIME DIFFERENCE AND PHASE SHIFTS BETWEEN PEAKS OF SOLAR RADIATION AND AIR TEMPERATURES. /AUTHOR/
Immigration and the School System ∗

Immigration is an important feature of many societies, and it has wide-ranging eﬀects on the education systems of host countries. There is now a large empirical literature, but very little theoretical work on this topic. We study a model of family immigration in a framework where school quality and student outcomes are determined endogenously. Within this framework, we address two research questions. First, we study the eﬀect of immigration on the diﬀerent dimensions of the school system, such as student eﬀort, parental involvement, school incentives and resources and how the endogenous response of the school system to immigration is interrelated with both immigrants’ and natives’ educational choices. Second, we explain the selection of immigrants when schooling considerations are relevant for the immigration decision and discuss the selection eﬀect of diﬀerent immigration policies.
Near Infrared Spectroscopy as a Tool for Estimation of Mechanical Stresses in Wood

Significant scientific work has been dedicated for exploration of the infrared applications within wood science and technology, not much has been done linking it to the mechanical testing. It is expected that due to mechanical stresses (and related deformations) the interaction between constitutive elements of wood changes, proportionally to the stresses applied. The response of the material to mechanical stresses (such as tensile loading) on the molecular level should be therefore detectable by means of infrared spectroscopy. Dedicated tests have been devoted for proving this hypothesis. Self-developed testing machine has been integrated with infrared spectrometer in order to conduct a series fully controlled mechanical tests. It was possible to predict stress level of wood during tension by applying proper chemometric analysis (partial least square (PLS) models). Implementation of infrared spectroscopy in to timber engineering and mechanical testing of wood provides very essential supplement to the typical information collected during standard tests. More additional tests and reference data is necessary in order to create more reliable and universal model suitable for routine assessments. Nevertheless, it was demonstrated that prediction of the stress on the basis of the infrared spectra is possible.
Cross sectional study estimating prevalence of heart failure and left ventricular systolic dysfunction in community patients at risk

OBJECTIVE To examine a general practice population to measure the prevalence of signs and symptoms of heart failure (SSHF) and left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD). DESIGN Cross sectional screening study in three general practices followed by echocardiography. SETTING AND PATIENTS All patients ⩾ 50 years in two general practices and ⩾ 40 years in one general practice were screened by case record reviews and questionnaires (n = 2158), to identify subjects with some evidence of heart disease. Among these, subjects were sought who had SSHF (n = 115). Of 357 subjects with evidence of heart disease, 252 were eligible for examination, and 126 underwent further cardiological assessment, including 43 with SSHF. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Prevalence of SSHF as defined by a modified Boston index, LVSD defined as an indirectly measured left ventricular ejection fraction ⩽ 0.45, and numbers of subjects needing an echocardiogram to detect one case with LVSD. RESULTS SSHF afflicted 0.5% of quadragenarians and rose to 11.7% of octogenarians. Two thirds were handled in primary care only. At ⩾ 50 years of age 6.4% had SSHF, 2.9% had LVSD, and 1.9% (95% confidence interval 1.3% to 2.5%) had both. To detect one case with LVSD in primary care, 14 patients with evidence of heart disease without SSHF and 5.5 patients with SSHF had to be examined. CONCLUSION SSHF is extremely prevalent in the community, especially in primary care, but more than two thirds do not have LVSD. The number of subjects with some evidence of heart disease needing an echocardiogram to detect one case of LVSD is 14.
Online Submission ID : 178 Data-Driven Enhancement of Facial Attractiveness

When human raters are presented with a collection of shapes and asked to rank them according to their aesthetic appeal, the results often indicate that there is a (statistical) consensus among the raters. Yet it might be difficult to define a succinct set of rules that capture the aesthetic preferences of the raters. In this work, we explore a data-driven approach to aesthetic enhancement of such shapes. Specifically, we focus on the challenging problem of enhancing the aesthetic appeal (or the attractiveness) of human faces in frontal photographs (portraits), while maintaining close similarity with the original. The key component in our approach is an automatic facial attractiveness rating machine: a Support Vector Regressor trained on datasets of faces with accompanying facial attractiveness ratings collected from groups of human raters. Given a new face, we extract a set of distances between a variety of facial feature locations, which define a point in a high-dimensional “face space”. We then search the face space for a nearby point with a higher predicted attractiveness rating. Once such a point is found, the corresponding facial distances are embedded in the plane and serve as a target to define a 2D warp field which maps the original facial features to their adjusted locations. The effectiveness of our technique was experimentally validated by independent rating experiments, which indicate that it is indeed capable of increasing the facial attractiveness of most portraits that we have experimented with.
Blood and milk immune and inflammatory profiles in periparturient dairy cows showing a different liver activity index

This paper reports the results of a study that aimed to assess whether liver functionality defined by liver activity index (LAI) is associated with inflammatory and immune parameters in blood and milk. LAI is an index including the average blood levels of albumin, lipoproteins and retinol-binding protein measured three times in the first month of lactation (at 5, 15 and 30 days in milk). The aim was to assess the relationship of this index with blood and udder immune and inflammatory status as a means of identifying as early as possible cows at risk of disease. The research was carried out using 10 multiparous Italian-Friesian dairy cows of average genetic merit. Cows were retrospectively ranked in three groups according the LAI level. Blood samplings were performed at different intervals before and after calving; quarter milk samples were taken only after calving with the same schedule as blood samples. Leucocytes, oxidative burst, blood lysozyme and N-acetyl-β-d-glucosaminidase (NAGase) curves showed large overlapping among the three LAI group curves during the follow-up period. Four blood (complement, sialic acid, haptoglobin and reactive oxygen metabolites) and three milk (somatic cell count, lysozyme and NAGase) parameters showed larger and more consistent differences among LAI groups. Complement showed higher values and sialic acid showed lower values in high LAI group when compared with the other two LAI groups. Two other markers of inflammatory status (haptoglobin and reactive oxygen metabolites) showed the lowest values in high LAI cows. A consistent and significant reduction of milk NAGase and milk lysozyme in high LAI group was observed. The results suggest that cows with the highest liver functionality index have also the highest levels of some immune markers and the lowest levels for inflammatory markers at blood (already before calving) and mammary levels. Finally, cows with low LAI index, being more susceptible to metabolic and infectious diseases, should be carefully monitored to identify as early as possible the development of a disease.
Out-of-Band Millimeter Wave Beamforming and Communications to Achieve Low Latency and High Energy Efficiency in 5G Systems

Communications in the millimeter wave (mmWave) band faces significant challenges due to variable channels, intermittent connectivity, and high energy usage. Moreover, speeds for electronic processing of data is of the same order as typical rates for mmWave interfaces, making the use of complex algorithms for tracking channel variations and adjusting resources impractical. In order to mitigate some of these challenges, we propose an architecture that integrates the sub-6 GHz and mmWave technologies. Our system exploits the spatial correlations between the sub-6 GHz and mmWave interfaces for beamforming and data transfer. Based on extensive experimentation in indoor and outdoor settings, we demonstrate that analog beamforming can be used in mmWave without incurring large overhead, thanks to the spatial correlations with sub-6 GHz. In addition, we incorporate the sub-6 GHz interface as a fallback (secondary) data transfer mechanism such that: 1) the negative effects of highly intermittent mmWave connectivity are mitigated and 2) the abundant mmWave capacity is fully exploited. To achieve these goals, we consider the problem of scheduling the arrival traffic over the mmWave or sub-6 GHz in order to maximize the mmWave throughput while delay (due to mmWave outages) is guaranteed to be bounded. We prove using subadditivity analysis that the optimal scheduling policy is based on a single threshold that can be easily adopted despite high link variations. Numerical results demonstrate that our scheduler provides a bounded mmWave delay performance, while it achieves a similar throughput performance as the throughput-optimal policies (e.g., MaxWeight).
Orbital lymphoma: Role of radiation

The purpose of this article is to review the literature for clinical presentation, treatment, outcome and complications of using radiotherapy for the treatment of orbital lymphoma. For this, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library were searched through January 2007 for published data on primary non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) of the orbit. The search was conducted in all document types, using the following terms “Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, MALT (mucosa associated lymphoid tissue) and orbit”. Data extracted were based on age, sex, therapeutic methods and outcome of treatment. When full articles were not available, abstracts were used as a source of information. Only those articles whose abstracts or full text were available in English were included in table. The review of reports of NHL of the orbit, in general, served as a source of information about its clinical behavior, treatment and overall prognosis. Fifty-six publications were identified, including six in languages other than English. There was no randomized trial. All the studies were retrospective. The studies were heterogeneous in patient number (3 to 112), histology, disease stage (IE to IV), radiotherapy doses used (4 to 53.8Gy), local control rates (65 to 100%), distant relapse rates (0 to 67%, from low grade to high grade) and five-year survival rates (33 to 100%). Three of the studies with a good number of patients also demonstrated clinical benefit with radiotherapy in terms of superior efficacy or less toxicity. Available data support the acceptance of radiotherapy as a standard therapeutic option in patients with low to intermediate grade orbital lymphoma. Toxicity of radiotherapy is mild if delivered precisely.
The emergence of network structure, complementarity and convergence from basic ecological and genetic processes

Plant-animal mutualistic networks are highly diverse and structured. This has been explained by coevolution through niche based processes. However, this explanation is only warranted if neutral processes (e.g. limited dispersal, genetic and ecological drift) cannot explain these patterns. Here we present a spatially explicit model based on explicit genetics and quantitative traits to study the connection between genome evolution, speciation and plant-animal network demography. We consider simple processes for the speciation dynamics of plant-animal mutualisms: ecological (dispersal, demography) and genetic processes (mutation, recombination, drift) and morphological constraints (matching of quantitative trait) for species interactions, particularly mating. We find the evolution of trait convergence and complementarity and topological features observed in real plant-animal mutualistic webs (i.e. nestedness and centrality). Furthermore, the morphological constraint for plant reproduction generates higher centrality among plant individuals (and species) than in animals, consistent with observations. We argue that simple processes are able to reproduce some well known ecological and evolutionary patterns of plant-animal mutualistic webs.
Educational and Behavioral Interventions for Back Pain in Primary Care

Study Design and Objectives A review of the literature was undertaken to identify and summarize randomized trials of educational, cognitive, and behavioral interventions for people with chronic low back pain. Summary of Background Data Studies of back schools have varied widely in patient characteristics, back school length and content, and comparison treatment. The available evidence suggests that back schools do not affect long‐term outcomes of people with back pain. Methods MEDLINE and PsycLIT databases were searched to identify randomized trials of cognitive and behavioral treatments for chronic low back pain. Outcome data were extracted from articles that met the meta‐analysis inclusion criteria. Results The meta‐analysis found that cognitive and behavioral treatments were superior to control conditions after treatment on measures of chronic low back pain, pain behavior, and disability. Follow‐up comparisons of cognitive and behavioral treatments versus control conditions were not available. This meta‐analysis did not find cognitive and behavioral therapies to differ from other active treatments on specific outcome measures, although only a few studies were available for each measure. Conclusion It may be useful to incorporate cognitive‐behavioral interventions in primary care settings, but additional research is needed to evaluate their efficacy in improving specific outcomes.
Differences in the prognostic relevance of myocardial ischaemia and scar by cardiac magnetic resonance in patients with and without diabetes mellitus.

AIMS To evaluate the prognostic significance of myocardial ischaemia and scar in patients with and without diabetes mellitus (DM) who undergo dobutamine stress cardiac magnetic resonance (DCMR) and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging for known and suspected coronary artery diseases (CADs). METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 1969 consecutive patients [age 63 ± 12 years, 29% female, left ventricular ejection fraction = 59 ± 12%] referred for a cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) examination including DCMR and LGE with the suspicion of CAD or progression of CAD in three tertiary cardiac centres were analysed. Cardiac death and nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) were registered as hard cardiac events. Patients with a revascularization procedure within the first 3 months after CMR were censored at the time of 'early' revascularization. Patients were followed for 3.2 ± 1.5 years (median 2.9, interquartile range 2-4.3 years). In total, 90 (4.6%) cardiac deaths and MI were registered. Among them, 328 patients (16.6%) had diabetes. The proportion of dobutamine-induced wall motion abnormalities (DWMA) and LGE was higher in patients with DM when compared with those without DM (27 vs. 19% and 53.6 vs. 41.2%, respectively, P < 0.001 for both for proportions). Both DWMA and LGE were independent predictors of cardiac death and MI in patients without DM (HR for DWMA 8, CI 4.5-14.3, HR for LGE 2.1, CI 1.1-4.1) and with DM (HR for DWMA 8.6, CI 3.5-21, HR for LGE 4.5, CI 1.5-13.1). Tests for interaction showed that LGE more strongly influences prognosis in patients with than in those without DM (P = 0.03 for interaction), whereas the presence of DWMA is related to similarly poor outcomes in patients with and without DM (P = NS). CONCLUSION Myocardial scar by LGE is a hallmark of markedly poorer outcome in patients with DM, while the presence of inducible myocardial ischaemia seems to be predictive both in patients with and without DM. Both markers surpass the predictive value of conventional atherogenic risk factors both in patients with and without DM.
Large Molecule Therapeutics Combining Antibody-Directed Presentation of IL-15 and 4-1 BBL in a Trifunctional Fusion Protein for Cancer Immunotherapy

Influencing the cytokine receptor network that modulates the immune response holds great potential for cancer immunotherapy.Although encouraging results have been obtained by focusing on individualmembers of the common g-chain (gc) receptor family and TNF receptor superfamily so far, combination strategies might be required to further improve the effectiveness of the antitumor response. Here, we propose the combination of interleukin (IL)-15 and 4-1BBL in a single, tumor-directed molecule. Therefore, a trifunctional antibody fusion protein was generated, composed of a tumor-specific recombinant antibody, IL-15 linked to a fragment of the IL-15Ra chain (RD) and the extracellular domain of 4-1BBL. In soluble and targeted forms, the trifunctional antibody fusion protein RD_IL-15_scFv_4-1BBL was shown to stimulate activated T-cell proliferation and induce T-cell cytotoxicity to a similar degree as the bifunctional scFv_RD_IL-15 fusion protein. On the other hand, in targeted form, the trifunctional fusion protein was much more effective in inducing T-cell proliferation and IFN-g release of unstimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Here, the additional signal enhancement could be attributed to the costimulatory activity of 4-1BBL, indicating a clear benefit for the simultaneous presentation of IL-15 and 4-1BBL in one molecule. Furthermore, the trifunctional antibody fusion protein was more effective than the corresponding bifunctional fusion proteins in reducing metastases in a tumormousemodel in vivo. Hence, the targeted combination of IL-15 and 4-BBL in the formof a trifunctional antibody-fusionprotein is apromisingnewapproach for cancer immunotherapy.MolCancerTher; 13(1); 112–21. 2013 AACR.
Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Driven Secondary Flow in a 90° Bend Pipe

The numerical simulation of the developing turbulent flow through a three-dimensional curved pipe with strong curvature is presented. This numerical simulation is to investigate the flow structure of pipe-flow through a 90° bent pipe with the aid of RNG k-ε turbulence model, which had been well validated for high screwed curvature flow. Dean Motion downstream of the bend are found and presented. And the numerical result demonstrates that Dean motions co-exist with large scale swirling motions inside the bend pipe. Snapshot of velocity and pressure reveals that the structures found upstream of the bend persist after the bend and survive the strong secondary motions induced by the pipe curvature.
Radiographic Anatomy of the Distal Dural Sac

A radio-anatomical study was performed of the distal dural sac (DS) in 121 patients subjected to myelography. In 83.4% the termination of the DS was located from the upper half of the S1-segment to the lower half of the S2-segment. In the remaining patients the dural terminations were more distally located. The average location of the DS-termination was higher than that found in a previous anatomic study. The inference is that in patients with low-back pain and sciatica, the DS tends to terminate at a higher spinal level than in a non-selected anatomic material. The caudal reduction in sagittal diameter of the DS was less than that of the frontal diameter of the sac. The linear diminution in cross-sectional area of the DS from the level of L3 towards the lumbosacral junction was not correlated with the degree of caudal extension of the DS into the sacrum. Thus the length of the DS and its transverse diameters are independent of each other. These results supported the view that the location of the termination of the DS (and hence that of the spinal cord) is not related to stenosis of the central spinal canal.
Associations of changes in body mass index with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in healthy middle-aged adults

Background Conflicting data exist regarding the association of body mass index (BMI) changes with all-cause and cardiovascular (CV) mortality. The current study investigated the association between changes in BMI and all-cause, CV, and non-CV mortality in a large cohort of middle-aged adults. Methods A total of 379,535 adults over 40 years of age without pre-existing CV disease or cancer at baseline were enrolled to undergo a series of at least three health examinations of biennial intervals. Changes in BMI between baseline, midpoint follow-up, and final health examination during mean 9.3 years were defined according to the pattern of BMI change as follows: stable, sustained gain, sustained loss, and fluctuation. The relationship between BMI change category and mortality was assessed by multivariate Cox regression reporting hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Results During a mean follow-up of 10.7 years for mortality, 12,378 deaths occurred from all causes, of which 2,114 were CV and 10,264 were non-CV deaths. Sustained BMI gain was associated with the lower risk of all-cause (HR 0.89, 95% CI: 0.83–0.95), CV (HR 0.84, 95% CI 0.72–0.98), and non-CV mortality (HR 0.90, 95% CI 0.84–0.96) compared with stable BMI. Conversely, sustained BMI loss (HR 1.25, 95% CI 1.19–1.32) and fluctuation (HR 1.13, 95% CI 1.08–1.19) displayed a higher risk of all-cause mortality compared with stable BMI, which was mainly attributable to the increase in non-CV mortality. Conclusion Sustained BMI gains were associated with reduced risk of all-cause, CV, and non-CV mortality in middle-aged healthy adults.