Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Th1 or Th2: How an appropriate T helper response can be made

Two types of T helper (Th) cells have been defined on the basis of their cytokine secretion patterns. The decision of a naive T cell to differentiate into Th1 or Th2 is crucial, since to a first approximation it determines whether a cell-mediated or humoral immune response is triggered against a particular pathogen, which profoundly influences disease outcome. Here we show that the internal behaviour of the T helper system, which emerges from regulatory mechanisms ‘built into’ the T helper system, itself can usually select the appropriate T helper response. This phenomenon arises from an initial Th1 bias together with the induction of Th1 → Th2 switches when Th1 effectors do not lead to efficient antigen clearance. The occurrence of these shifts is based on the antigen dose dependence of T helper differentiation, which is a consequence of asymmetries in cross-suppression. Critical for this feature is the rate with which Th2 cells undergo antigen-induced cell death.
Effective treatment of mitochondrial myopathy by nicotinamide riboside, a vitamin B3

Nutrient availability is the major regulator of life and reproduction, and a complex cellular signaling network has evolved to adapt organisms to fasting. These sensor pathways monitor cellular energy metabolism, especially mitochondrial ATP production and NAD+/NADH ratio, as major signals for nutritional state. We hypothesized that these signals would be modified by mitochondrial respiratory chain disease, because of inefficient NADH utilization and ATP production. Oral administration of nicotinamide riboside (NR), a vitamin B3 and NAD+ precursor, was previously shown to boost NAD+ levels in mice and to induce mitochondrial biogenesis. Here, we treated mitochondrial myopathy mice with NR. This vitamin effectively delayed early‐ and late‐stage disease progression, by robustly inducing mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle and brown adipose tissue, preventing mitochondrial ultrastructure abnormalities and mtDNA deletion formation. NR further stimulated mitochondrial unfolded protein response, suggesting its protective role in mitochondrial disease. These results indicate that NR and strategies boosting NAD+ levels are a promising treatment strategy for mitochondrial myopathy.
Functional Outcomes Following Nonsurgical Treatment for Advanced‐Stage Laryngeal Carcinoma

Objectives Objectives were 1) to provide comprehensive evaluations of functional outcomes using perceptual and objective measures of patients treated nonsurgically for stages III and IV laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma and 2) to propose a standard battery of tests that can be used for appraising functional outcomes in this patient population.
Using Ecological Momentary Assessment to Evaluate Current Physical Activity

Objective. The purpose of this study was to assess the value of ecological momentary assessment in evaluating physical activity among children, adolescents, and adults. It also determines whether ecological momentary assessment fulfills the criteria of validity, reliability, objectivity, norms, and standardization applied to the tools used for the evaluation of physical activity. Methods. The EBSCO-CINHAL, Medline, PsycINFO, PubMed, and SPORTDiscuss databases were reviewed in December 2012 for articles associated with EMA. Results. Of the 20 articles examined, half (10) used electronic methods for data collection, although various methods were used, ranging from pen and paper to smartphone applications. Ten studies used objective monitoring equipment. Nineteen studies were performed over 4 days. While the validity of the EMA method was discussed in 18 studies, only four found it to be objective. In all cases, the EMA procedures were precisely documented and confirmed to be feasible. Conclusions. Ecological momentary assessment is a valid, reliable, and feasible approach to evaluate activity and sedentary behavior. Researchers should be aware that while ecological momentary assessment offers many benefits, it simultaneously imposes many limitations which should be considered when studying physical activity.
The Self‐Reactive Antibody Repertoire of Normal Human Serum IgM is Acquired in Early Childhood and Remains Conserved Throughout Life

The authors have used a quantitative immunoblotting technique to analyse the antibody repertoire of IgM in cord blood and in the serum of young children, young adult males and aged males directed towards antigens in homologous tissues utilized as sources of self antigens. The reactivities of IgM with self antigens exhibited striking homogeneity and invariance among newborns. Self‐reactive IgM repertoires of children, young adults and aged males were markedly conserved among individuals and comprised most of the anti‐self reactivities that prevailed in neonates. Reactivities of IgM with bacterial antigens showed a high degree of homogeneity among newborns but were more diverse in children, young adults and elderly individuals. Diversity of IgM reactivities with self and non‐self antigens did not vary significantly with aging. Principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) of the data discriminated between self‐reactive IgM repertoires of newborns and children, but failed to discriminate between repertoires of children, young adults and aged males. The data indicate that the self‐reactive antibody repertoire of IgM differentiates during the first years of life and remains relatively constant thereafter.
NATIONAL SURVEY OF VENEREAL DISEASE TREATMENT.

THE YEARS 1946 to 1948, the period in which the highest incidence of syphilis was recorded, also witnessed the successful development of absorption-delaying vehicles which opened the door for outpatient penicillin therapy for syphilis. For the first time in the history of treatment of this disease an effective method of therapy was provided which could be administered with relative safety not only by specialists in the field, but by any qualified practitioner of medicine. The dramatic decrease in reported cases of syphilis from 1947 to 1957 is a success story in the field of public health. Although there is no question that there was a large and actual decrease in the incidence of syphilis during this era, part of the decrease in reported cases may have been due to the shift in treatment from public facilities and complete case reporting to private physicians and incomplete case reporting. Isolated surveys
Sentiment Analysis in TripAdvisor

Web platforms such as TripAdvisor allow tourists to describe their experiences with hotels, restaurants, and other tourist attractions. This article proposes TripAdvisor as a source of data for sentiment analysis tasks. The authors develop an analysis for studying the matching between users’ sentiments and automatic sentiment-detection algorithms. They also discuss some of the challenges regarding sentiment analysis and TripAdvisor.
Compressive fracture of brittle materials

Pre-cracked rectangular blocks of two different glassy brittle polymers were compressed under a flat steel platen until failure occurred. Three distinct failure modes, gross yielding under platen, axial splitting and plastic instability (buckling) were observed, depending on the pre-crack length and platen width. The axial splitting failure mode is explained by invoking the energy balance concept of fracture with a two-strut elastic model. In this mode, the elastic fracture surface energy or, equivalently, the stress intensity factor and not the compressive strength, is found to be the fundamental material property dictating compression failure. The role played by the pre-crack length and platen width in controlling the failure mode transition from gross yielding to compression splitting and to buckling is highlighted. Finite element and boundary element calculations support the proposed two-strut model for compression splitting.
Thioredoxin, a Redox Enzyme Released in Infection and Inflammation, Is a Unique Chemoattractant for Neutrophils, Monocytes, and T Cells

Thioredoxin (Trx) is a ubiquitous intracellular protein disulfide oxidoreductase with a CXXC active site that can be released by various cell types upon activation. We show here that Trx is chemotactic for monocytes, polymorphonuclear leukocytes, and T lymphocytes, both in vitro in the standard micro Boyden chamber migration assay and in vivo in the mouse air pouch model. The potency of the chemotactic action of Trx for all leukocyte populations is in the nanomolar range, comparable with that of known chemokines. However, Trx does not increase intracellular Ca2+ and its activity is not inhibited by pertussis toxin. Thus, the chemotactic action of Trx differs from that of known chemokines in that it is G protein independent. Mutation of the active site cysteines resulted in loss of chemotactic activity, suggesting that the latter is mediated by the enzyme activity of Trx. Trx also accounted for part of the chemotactic activity released by human T lymphotropic virus (HTLV)-1–infected cells, which was inhibited by incubation with anti-Trx antibody. Since Trx production is induced by oxidants, it represents a link between oxidative stress and inflammation that is of particular interest because circulating Trx levels are elevated in inflammatory diseases and HIV infection.
Improved second-order Møller–Plesset perturbation theory by separate scaling of parallel- and antiparallel-spin pair correlation energies

A simple modification of second-order Moller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) to improve the description of molecular ground state energies is proposed. The total MP2 correlation energy is partitioned into parallel- and antiparallel-spin components which are separately scaled. The two parameters (scaling factors), whose values can be justified by basic theoretical arguments, have been optimized on a benchmark set of 51 reaction energies composed of 74 first-row molecules. It is found, that the new method performs significantly better than standard MP2: the rms [mean absolute error (MAE)] deviation drops from 4.6 (3.3) to 2.3 (1.8) kcal/mol. The maximum error is reduced from 13.3 to 5.1 kcal/mol. Significant improvements are especially observed for cases which are usually known as MP2 pitfalls while cases already described well with MP2 remain almost unchanged. Even for 11 atomization energies not considered in the fit, uniform improvements [MAE: 8.1 kcal/mol (MP2) versus 3.2 kcal/mol (new)] are found. Th.
Rankin-Cohen Brackets and the Hopf Algebra of Transverse Geometry

We settle in this paper a question left open in our paper ``Modular Hecke algebras and their Hopf symmetry'', by showing how to extend the Rankin-Cohen brackets from modular forms to modular Hecke algebras. More generally, our procedure yields such brackets on any associative algebra endowed with an action of the Hopf algebra of transverse geometry in codimension one, such that the derivation corresponding to the Schwarzian derivative is inner. Moreover, we show in full generality that these Rankin-Cohen brackets give rise to associative deformations.
Chronic prenatal ethanol exposure alters ionotropic glutamate receptor subunit protein levels in the adult guinea pig cerebral cortex.

BACKGROUND The superfamily of glutamate-gated ion channels mediates fast excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system and is composed of the NMDA, AMPA, and kainate receptors. Binding studies have shown that chronic prenatal and/or neonatal ethanol exposure produces persistent effects on the numbers of some of these channels. However, whether or not this chronic ethanol exposure produces long-lasting effects on the expression of specific ionotropic receptor subunits remains an open question. METHODS Timed pregnant Dunkin-Hartley strain guinea pigs received oral administration of one of the following regimens between gestational days 2 and 67: (1) 4 g of ethanol per kilogram of maternal body weight per day with ad libitum access to pellet food and water (ethanol group), (2) isocaloric sucrose- and pair-feeding with ad libitum access to water (sucrose group), or (3) isovolumetric water with ad libitum access to food and water (water group). The maternal blood ethanol concentration produced by the ethanol regimen was 71 +/- 12 mM. Adult offspring were killed on postnatal day 61, and cerebral cortical tissue was analyzed for ionotropic glutamate receptor subunit expression by Western immunoblotting. RESULTS There was a statistically significant decrease in NR2B subunit protein expression and an increase in GluR2/3 subunit protein expression in the ethanol group. Expression of NR1, NR2A, NR2C, GluR1, GluR6/7, and KA2 subunit proteins was not affected. CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate that chronic prenatal ethanol exposure produces long-lasting effects on the subunit composition of NMDA and AMPA receptors in the cerebral cortex of the adult guinea pig.
Optimal Contract Design under Common Uncertainty and Internal Cost Analysis

In this paper we study the optimal contract design for a manufacturing rm which in two subsequent periods appoints some subcontractor to carry out a project. The rm cannot observe the subcontractors actions which means that Moral Hazard is present. Both partners are a priori uncertain about the base cost level of the project but between the two periods a noisy signal of the base cost level can be observed. The precision of the signal is assumed to depend on the agent's rst period e ort. The impact of such a dependency on the optimal contract and the relationship between short and long term contracts is analyzed. JEL Classi cation: C72, D82, D83
Robust Non-Rigid Object Tracking Using Point Distribution Models

This paper presents a robust approach to non-rigid object tracking in video sequences. The object to track is described by a 2-dimensional point distribution model whose landmarks correspond to interest points that are automatically extracted from the object and described by their geometrical position and their local appearance. The approach is novel in that we describe the appearance locally instead of using the raw texture information. This provides a natural way to robustly handle partial occlusions. A second contribution is that we present a method that allows to learn the model automatically. Our algorithms have been successfully tested on several video streams taken from soccer games and video surveillance footage. They have been implemented with the aim of achieving near real-time performance.
Are the Naranjo Criteria Reliable and Valid for Determination of Adverse Drug Reactions in the Intensive Care Unit?

BACKGROUND The Naranjo criteria are frequently used for determination of causality for suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs); however, the psychometric properties have not been studied in the critically ill. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the reliability and validity of the Naranjo criteria for ADR determination in the intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS All patients admitted to a surgical ICU during a 3-month period were enrolled. Four raters independently reviewed 142 suspected ADRs using the Naranjo criteria (review 1). Raters evaluated the 142 suspected ADRs 3–4 weeks later, again using the Naranjo criteria (review 2). Inter-rater reliability was tested using the kappa statistic. The weighted kappa statistic was calculated between reviews 1 and 2 for the intra-rater reliability of each rater. Cronbach alpha was computed to assess the inter-item consistency correlation. The Naranjo criteria were compared with expert opinion for criterion validity for each rater and reported as a Spearman rank (rs) coefficient. RESULTS The kappa statistic ranged from 0.14 to 0.33, reflecting poor inter-rater agreement. The weighted kappa within raters was 0.5402–0.9371. The Cronbach alpha ranged from 0.443 to 0.660, which is considered moderate to good. The rs coefficient range was 0.385–0.545; all rs coefficients were statistically significant (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Inter-rater reliability is marginal; however, within-rater evaluation appears to be consistent. The inter-item correlation is expected to be higher since all questions pertain to ADRs. Overall, the Naranjo criteria need modification for use in the ICU to improve reliability, validity, and clinical usefulness.
Association of Blood Pressure With Blood Viscosity in American Indians: The Strong Heart Study

Abnormalities in whole blood viscosity (WBV) have been implicated in hypertension. This study analyzes relations between WBV and blood pressure in the Strong Heart Study population of American Indians. We examined 676 participants (489 women, age 62±7 years) without prevalent cardiovascular disease or use of antihypertensive medications, digoxin, or aspirin. WBV was calculated from hematocrit and plasma protein concentration, at a shear rate of 208 seconds−1, by a validated equation. Forty eight percent of participants were obese, 43% had diabetes, 19% had hypertension, and 30% were current smokers. WBV was higher in men, smokers, and participants with central obesity, but it was not associated with hypertension or diabetes, even accounting for confounders. After adjusting for gender, age, center, smoking, obesity, diabetes, and plasma creatinine, WBV was negatively related to pulse pressure (&bgr;=−0.13; P<0.001) and systolic pressure (&bgr;=−0.09; P<0.02), mainly because of negative relations with hematocrit (&bgr;=−0.11 and −0.10). Among hypertensive individuals, pulse pressure was positively related to age, diabetes, and female gender but not to WBV (multiple R=0.63; P<0.0001); in contrast, in normotensive individuals, pulse pressure was related negatively to WBV or hematocrit, independent of body mass index, without relation to diabetes (R=0.42; P<0.0001). Thus, under normal physiological conditions, in vivo WBV is negatively related pulse pressure. In contrast, the presence of arterial hypertension makes this relation less evident.
Reliable Fuzzy Control for Active Suspension Systems With Actuator Delay and Fault

This paper is focused on reliable fuzzy H∞ controller design for active suspension systems with actuator delay and fault. The Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model approach is adapted in this study with the consideration of the sprung and the unsprung mass variation, the actuator delay and fault, and other suspension performances. By the utilization of the parallel-distributed compensation scheme, a reliable fuzzy H∞ performance analysis criterion is derived for the proposed T-S fuzzy model. Then, a reliable fuzzy H∞ controller is designed such that the resulting T-S fuzzy system is reliable in the sense that it is asymptotically stable and has the prescribed H∞ performance under given constraints. The existence condition of the reliable fuzzy H∞ controller is obtained in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) Finally, a quarter- vehicle suspension model is used to demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of the proposed design techniques.
Functional analysis of primary visual cortex (V1) in humans.

Human area V1 offers an excellent opportunity to study, using functional MRI, a range of properties in a specific cortical visual area, whose borders are defined objectively and convergently by retinotopic criteria. The retinotopy in V1 (also known as primary visual cortex, striate cortex, or Brodmann's area 17) was defined in each subject by using both stationary and phase-encoded polar coordinate stimuli. Data from V1 and neighboring retinotopic areas were displayed on flattened cortical maps. In additional tests we revealed the paired cortical representations of the monocular "blind spot. " We also activated area V1 preferentially (relative to other extrastriate areas) by presenting radial gratings alternating between 6% and 100% contrast. Finally, we showed evidence for orientation selectivity in V1 by measuring transient functional MRI increases produced at the change in response to gratings of differing orientations. By systematically varying the orientations presented, we were able to measure the bandwidth of the orientation "transients" (45 degrees).
Mechanical parameter extraction using resonant structures

In order to model and design micromechanical sensors and actuators, it is of crucial importance that thin film mechanical parameters, such as the Young's modulus and the residual stress, are known. In this paper, the parameter extraction method using resonant structures have been used to obtain these data and has been compared with the bulge test. Circular aluminum diaphragms have been used as samples
Emv30null NOD-scid Mice: An Improved Host for Adoptive Transfer of Autoimmune Diabetes and Growth of Human Lymphohematopoietic Cells

When used as hosts in passive transfer experiments, a stock of NOD/Lt mice congenic for the severe combined immunodeficiency (scid) mutation have provided great insight to the contributions of various T-cell populations in the pathogenesis of autoimmune insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Moreover, NOD-scid mice support higher levels of human lymphohematopoietic cell growth than the C.B-17-scid strain in which the mutation originated. However, the ability to perform long-term lymphohematopoietic repopulation studies in the NOD-scid stock has been limited by the fact that most of these mice develop lethal thymic lymphomas beginning at 20 weeks of age. These thymic lymphomas are characterized by activation and subsequent genomic reintegrations of Emv30, an endogenous murine ecotropic retrovirus unique to the NOD genome. To test the role of this endogenous retrovirus in thymomagenesis, we produced a stock of Emv30null NOD-scid mice by congenic replacement of the proximal end of chromosome 11 with genetic material derived from the closely related NOR/Lt strain. Thymic lymphomas still initiate in Emv30null NOD-scid females, but their rate of progression is significantly retarded since the frequency of tumors weighing between 170 and 910 mg at 25 weeks of age was reduced to 20.8% vs. 76.2% in Emv30% segregants. The thymic lymphomas that did develop in Emv30null NOD-scid mice were not characterized by a compensatory increase in mink cell focus–forming proviral integrations, which initiate thymomagenesis in other susceptible mouse strains. Significantly, the ability of standard NOD T-cells to transfer IDDM to the Emv30null NOD-scid stock was not impaired. Similarly, the elimination of Emv30 did notabrogate the enhanced ability of NOD-scid mice to support the growth of human peripheral blood leukocytes. These findings coupled with the slowed progression of thymic lymphomas indicate that Emv30null NOD-scid mice are an improved,but not yet optimal, recipient for long-term
A Quantitative Examination of Explanations for Reasons for Internet Nonuse

This article investigates patterns of reasons for digital disengagement of British adults. It adds a psychological dimension to research that is mostly sociological in nature in trying to separate out explanations for disengaging from the Internet by choice or by forced exclusion. The analysis of a nationally representative survey shows differences between the number of reasons and the most important reasons among different sociodemographic groups, but also among individuals with different psychological profiles. The findings suggest that ex- and nonusers do not have one simple reason for nonuse, but a multifaceted range of reasons, which often represent disadvantages at several levels. The range of often mentioned reasons, moreover, shows that motivations for disengagement cannot be measured by means of the most important reason, but that all reasons have to be taken into account and looked at concertedly.