Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Etanercept in Alzheimer disease: A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, phase 2 trial

with Alzheimer disease (AD) dementia. Although it was not their primary outcome, the authors hypothesized that etanercept could decrease systemic inflammation and result in cognitive benefits. Butchart et al. previously observed that baseline increased inflammatory marker levels were associated with more rapid decline in cognitive functions in patients with AD dementia. However, the levels of inflammatory markers in the current study are relatively low in comparison with those reported in their previous studies. Tumor necrosis factor range was 1.8–3.2 pg/mL in the current study, while it was . 3.27 pg/mL in the highest 2 quartiles in the previous study. In addition, interleukin (IL)–6 range was 0.5–1.5 pg/mL in the current study, while it was.2. 8 pg/mL in the group with higher IL-6 in the previous study. Absence of low-grade systemic inflammation in the baseline visit may have attenuated a potentially beneficial effect of etanercept on cognitive functions in this study. Finally, the C-reactive protein (CRP) levels may be incorrect: they seem very high at 1.8 mg/mL and may actually have been 1.8 mg/mL. Studying subjects with higher baseline levels of inflammatory markers in further studies might provide valuable information.
An Ecological Study of Lactococci Isolated from Raw Milk in the Camembert Cheese Registered Designation of Origin Area

ABSTRACT The genetic diversity of lactococci isolated from raw milk in the Camembert cheese Registered Designation of Origin area was studied. Two seasonal samples (winter and summer) of raw milk were obtained from six farms in two areas (Bessin and Bocage Falaisien) of Normandy. All of the strains analyzed had a Lactococcus lactis subsp.lactis phenotype, whereas the randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique genotypically identified the strains as members of L. lactis subsp. lactis orL. lactis subsp. cremoris. The genotypes were confirmed by performing standard PCR with primers corresponding to a region of the histidine biosynthesis operon. The geographic distribution of each subspecies of L. lactis was determined; 80% of the Bocage Falaisien strains were members ofL. lactis subsp. lactis, and 30.5% of the Bessin strains were members of L. lactis subsp.lactis. A dendrogram was produced from a computer analysis of the RAPD profiles in order to evaluate the diversity of the lactococci below the subspecies level. The coefficient of similarity for 117 of the 139 strains identified as members of L. lactis subsp.cremoris was as high as 66%. The L. lactis subsp. lactis strains were more heterogeneous and formed 10 separate clusters (the level of similarity among the clusters was 18%). Reference strains of L. lactissubsp. lactis fell into 2 of these 10 clusters, demonstrating that lactococcal isolates are clearly different. As determined by the RAPD profiles, some L. lactis subsp.lactis strains were specific to the farms from which they originated and were recovered throughout the year (in both summer and winter). Therefore, the typicality of L. lactissubsp. lactis strains was linked to the farm of origin rather than the area. These findings emphasize the significance of designation of origin and the specificity of “Camembert de Normandie” cheese.
Unsupervised High-level Feature Learning by Ensemble Projection for Semi-supervised Image Classification and Image Clustering

This paper investigates the problem of image classification with limited or no annotations, but abundant unlabeled data. The setting exists in many tasks such as semi-supervised image classification, image clustering, and image retrieval. Unlike previous methods, which develop or learn sophisticated regularizers for classifiers, our method learns a new image representation by exploiting the distribution patterns of all available data for the task at hand. Particularly, a rich set of visual prototypes are sampled from all available data, and are taken as surrogate classes to train discriminative classifiers; images are projected via the classifiers; the projected values, similarities to the prototypes, are stacked to build the new feature vector. The training set is noisy. Hence, in the spirit of ensemble learning we create a set of such training sets which are all diverse, leading to diverse classifiers. The method is dubbed Ensemble Projection (EP). EP captures not only the characteristics of individual images, but also the relationships among images. It is conceptually simple and computationally efficient, yet effective and flexible. Experiments on eight standard datasets show that: (1) EP outperforms previous methods for semi-supervised image classification; (2) EP produces promising results for self-taught image classification, where unlabeled samples are a random collection of images rather than being from the same distribution as the labeled ones; and (3) EP improves over the original features for image clustering. The code of the method is available on the project page.
A new lacrimal bypass tube fixation method to prevent tube displacement in conjunctivodacryocystorhinostomy (CDCR)

Aims To evaluate the efficacy of a new lacrimal bypass tube fixation technique to the conjunctiva and caruncle, preventing postoperative displacement of the tube in conjunctivodacryocystorhinostomies (CDCRs). Methods The authors conducted 52 CDCR procedures by a new tube fixation technique using a 6–0 prolene suture encircling the tube neck (encircling group). The suture was not removed during the follow-up period. Over the same period, the authors carried out 51 CDCRs with tube fixation using a 5–0 vicryl suture with the purse string procedure (purse string group) and 71 conventional CDCRs with tube fixation to the skin using a 6–0 nylon suture (control group). Postoperative complications, including dislodgement and tube length problems, were recorded. The three groups were statistically compared. Results Among the 52 cases using the new fixation technique, tube malpositions, including extrusions, had developed in only four cases (7.7%) at 12 months after the operation. In the purse string and control groups, the same complications developed in 11 (21.6%) and 22 cases (31.0%), respectively. A statistically significant difference between these groups was detected (p=0.008). Other complications, such as conjunctival granulomas and tube obstruction, developed postoperatively in four cases (8.0%) in the encircling group, and this did not differ significantly from that in the other groups (p=0.193). Conclusions The authors believe that this encircling fixation procedure can help in CDCRs for maintaining the location and orientation of the tube during the early postoperative period.
Emergent Collective Sensing in Human Groups

Despite its importance, human collective intelligence remains enigmatic. We know what features are predictive of collective intelligence in human groups, but we do not understand the specific mechanisms that lead to the emergence of this distributed information processing ability. In contrast, there is a well-developed literature of experiments that have exposed the mechanisms of collective intelligence in nonhuman animal species. We adapt a recent experiment designed to study collective sensing in groups of fish in order to better understand the mechanisms that may underly the emergence of collective intelligence in human groups. We find that humans in our experiments act at a high level like fish but with two additional behaviors: independent exploration and targeted copying. These distinctively human activities may partially explain the emergence of collective sensing in our task environment at group sizes and on times scales orders of magnitudes smaller than were observed in fish.
The University of Birmingham ( Live System ) Epileptic high-frequency network activity in a model of non-lesional temporal lobe epilepsy

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Unipolar Brush Cells of the Cerebellum Are Produced in the Rhombic Lip and Migrate through Developing White Matter

Unipolar brush cells (UBCs) are glutamatergic interneurons in the cerebellar cortex and dorsal cochlear nucleus. We studied the development of UBCs, using transcription factor Tbr2/Eomes as a marker for UBCs and their progenitors in embryonic and postnatal mouse cerebellum. Tbr2+ UBCs appeared to migrate out of the upper rhombic lip via two cellular streams: a dorsal pathway into developing cerebellar white matter, where the migrating cells dispersed widely before entering the internal granular layer, and a rostral pathway along the cerebellar ventricular zone toward the brainstem. Ablation of the rhombic lip in organotypic slice cultures substantially reduced the production of Tbr2+ UBCs. In coculture experiments, Tbr2+ UBCs migrated from rhombic lip explants directly into the developing white matter of adjacent cerebellar slices. The origin of Tbr2+ UBCs was confirmed by colocalization with β-galactosidase expressed from the Math1 locus, a molecular marker of rhombic lip lineages. Moreover, the production of Tbr2+ UBCs was Math1 dependent, as Tbr2+ UBCs were severely reduced in Math1-null cerebellum. In reeler mutant mice, Tbr2+ UBCs accumulated near the rhombic lip, consistent with impaired migration through developing white matter. Our results suggest that UBCs arise from the rhombic lip and migrate via novel pathways to their final destinations in the cerebellum and dorsal cochlear nucleus. Our findings support a model of cerebellar neurogenesis, in which glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons are produced from separate progenitor pools located mainly in the rhombic lip and the cerebellar ventricular zone, respectively.
Analysis of Hepatitis C Virus-Inoculated Chimpanzees Reveals Unexpected Clinical Profiles

ABSTRACT The clinical course of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in a chimpanzee cohort was examined to better characterize the outcome of this valuable animal model. Results of a cross-sectional study revealed that a low percentage (39%) of HCV-inoculated chimpanzees were viremic based on reverse transcription (RT-PCR) analysis. A correlation was observed between viremia and the presence of anti-HCV antibodies. The pattern of antibodies was dissimilar among viremic chimpanzees and chimpanzees that cleared the virus. Viremic chimpanzees had a higher prevalence of antibody reactivity to NS3, NS4, and NS5. Since an unexpectedly low percentage of chimpanzees were persistently infected with HCV, a longitudinal analysis of the virological profile of a small panel of HCV-infected chimpanzees was performed to determine the kinetics of viral clearance and loss of antibody. This study also revealed that a low percentage (33%) of HCV-inoculated chimpanzees were persistently viremic. Analysis of serial bleeds from six HCV-infected animals revealed four different clinical profiles. Viral clearance with either gradual or rapid loss of anti-HCV antibody was observed in four animals within 5 months postinoculation. A chronic-carrier profile characterized by persistent HCV RNA and anti-HCV antibody was observed in two animals. One of these chimpanzees was RT-PCR positive, antibody negative for 5 years and thus represented a silent carrier. If extrapolated to the human population, these data would imply that a significant percentage of unrecognized HCV infections may occur and that silent carriers may represent potentially infectious blood donors.
Enzyme activities, fibre types and capillarization in calf muscles of patients with intermittent claudication.

Gastrocnemius muscle samples were obtained from two groups of patients with intermittent claudication as well as from an age-matched control group. Group A consisted of patients with impaired blood flow to both legs, whereas in group B the patients had arterial occlusions in only one leg. Succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity was significantly lower in the patients compared to the controls, being 6.4 (A), 5.3 (Boccluded leg), and 5.4 (Bunoccluded leg) vs 8.7 μmol/g/min in the control group. The average proportions of slow twitch (ST) and fast twitch (FT) fibres in the control group was 60% ST and 40% FT. None of the patient groups differed significantly from this. In the control group the fast twitch population was made up of similar proportions of FTa and FTb fibres, whereas in group A there were approximately twice as many FTb compared to FTa fibres (2P<0.05). With the exception of the ST fibres of group A, the area of the three fibre types tended to be smaller in the patient groups as compared to the .
Minimax Results on Dense Sets and Dense Families of Functionals

In this paper we deal with minimax results on dense sets. We first study under which conditions the infimum of a function over a dense subset of its domain coincides with the global infimum of that function. Then, we apply our results in order to obtain several minimax results on dense sets. Finally, we obtain the denseness of some parameterized families of functionals in the Banach space of bounded functions and we provide an alternative proof of the famous reflexivity result of James.
Document image enhancement using directional wavelet

This paper proposes an algorithm to clean up a large collection of historical handwritten documents kept up in the National Archives of Singapore. Due to the seepage of ink over long period of storage, the front page of each document has been severely marred by the reverse side writing. Earlier attempts have been made to match both sides of the page to identify the offending strokes originating from the back so as to eliminate them with the aid of a wavelet transform. Perfect matching, however, is difficult due to document skews, differing resolutions, inadvertently missing out reverse side and warped pages during image capture. An approach is now proposed to do away with double side mapping by using a directional wavelet transform that is able to distinguish the foreground and reverse side strokes much better than the conventional wavelet transform. Experiments have shown that the method indeed enhances the readability of each document significantly over after the directional wavelet operation without the need for mapping with its reverse side.
Optimization of TiN/TaOx/HfO2/TiN RRAM Arrays for Improved Switching and Data Retention

Recently, we demonstrated a TiN/TaOx/HfO2/TiN RRAM [1]. The Conductive Metal Oxide (TaOx) acted as an in-built current compliance layer and improved thermal efficiency too, leading to high-quality RRAM characteristics [1]. In this work, we report excellent resistance uniformity and endurance for these TiN/TaOx/HfO2/TiN RRAMs and present techniques to optimize switching and data retention. An oxygen anneal after HfO2 atomic layer deposition is shown to improve data retention quite significantly for 1kb arrays, while not having a deleterious effect on switching. Experiments on different HfO2 thicknesses indicate that an optimal thickness exists which gives a good tradeoff between FORM voltage and data retention.
Prevalence of Detectable C-Peptide According to Age at Diagnosis and Duration of Type 1 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE It is generally accepted that complete β-cell destruction eventually occurs in individuals with type 1 diabetes, which has implications for treatment approaches and insurance coverage. The frequency of residual insulin secretion in a large cohort of individuals at varying ages of diagnosis and type 1 diabetes duration is unknown. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The frequency of residual insulin secretion was determined by measurement of nonfasting serum C-peptide concentration in 919 individuals with type 1 diabetes according to prespecified groups based on age at diagnosis and duration of disease (from 3 to 81 years' duration). Stimulated C-peptide was measured in those with detectable nonfasting values and a group of those with undetectable values as control. RESULTS The overall frequency of detectable nonfasting C-peptide was 29%, decreasing with time from diagnosis regardless of age at diagnosis. In all duration groups, the frequency of C-peptide was higher with diagnosis age >18 years compared with ≤18 years. Nineteen percent of those with undetectable nonfasting C-peptide were C-peptide positive upon stimulation testing. CONCLUSIONS The American Diabetes Association’s definition of type 1 diabetes as “usually leading to absolute insulin deficiency” results in clinicians often considering the presence of residual insulin secretion as unexpected in this population. However, our data suggest that residual secretion is present in almost one out of three individuals 3 or more years from type 1 diabetes diagnosis. The frequency of residual C-peptide decreases with time from diagnosis regardless of age at diagnosis, yet at all durations of disease, diagnosis during adulthood is associated with greater frequency and higher values of C-peptide.
Does Calcium Deposition Play a Role in the Stability of Atheroma? Location May Be the Key

Background: Rupture of vulnerable atheromatous plaque in the carotid and coronary arteries often leads to stroke and heart attack respectively. The role of calcium deposition and its contribution to plaque stability is controversial. This study uses both an idealized and a patient-specific model to evaluate the effect of a calcium deposit on the stress distribution within an atheromatous plaque. Methods: Using a finite-element method, structural analysis was performed on an idealized plaque model and the location of a calcium deposit within it was varied. In addition to the idealized model, in vivo high-resolution MR imaging was performed on 3 patients with carotid atheroma and stress distributions were generated. The individual plaques were chosen as they had calcium at varying locations with respect to the lumen and the fibrous cap. Results: The predicted maximum stress was increased by 47.5% when the calcium deposit was located in the thin fibrous cap in the model when compared with that in a model without a deposit. The result of adding a calcium deposit either to the lipid core or remote from the lumen resulted in almost no increase in maximal stress. Conclusion: Calcification at the thin fibrous cap may result in high stress concentrations, ultimately increasing the risk of plaque rupture. Assessing the location of calcification may, in the future, aid in the risk stratification of patients with carotid stenosis.
AHNAK a novel component of the dysferlin protein complex, redistributes to the cytoplasm with dysferlin during skeletal muscle regeneration

Mutations in dysferlin cause limb girdle muscular dystrophy 2B, Miyoshi myopathy and distal anterior compartment myopathy. Dysferlin is proposed to play a role in muscle membrane repair. To gain functional insight into the molecular mechanisms of dysferlin, we have searched for dysferlin‐interacting proteins in skeletal muscle. By coimmunoprecipitation coupled with mass spectrometry, we demonstrate that AHNAK interacts with dysferlin. We defined the binding sites in dysferlin and AHNAK as the C2A domain in dysferlin and the carboxyterminal domain of AHNAK by glutathione S‐transferase (GST)‐pull down assays. As expected, the N‐terminal domain of myoferlin also interacts with the carboxyterminal domain of AHNAK. In normal skeletal muscle, dysferlin and AHNAK colo‐calize at the sarcolemmal membrane and T‐tubules. In dysferlinopathies, reduction or absence of dysferlin correlates with a secondary muscle‐specific loss of AHNAK. Moreover, in regenerating rat muscle, dysfer‐lin and AHNAK showed a marked increase and cyto‐plasmic localization, consistent with the direct interaction between them. Our data suggest that dysferlin participates in the recruitment and stabilization of AHNAK to the sarcolemma and that AHNAK plays a role in dysferlin membrane repair process. It may also have significant implications for understanding the biology of AHNAK‐containing exocytotic vesicles, “en‐largosomes, ” in plasma membrane remodeling and repair. —Huang Y. , Laval S. H. , van Remoortere A. , Baudier J., Benaud C. , Anderson L. V. B. , Straub V. , Deelder A. , Frants R. R. , den Dunnen J. T. , Bushby K. , van der Maarel S. M. AHNAK, a novel component of the dysferlin protein complex, redistributes to the cytoplasm with dysferlin during skeletal muscle regeneration. FASEB J. 21, 732–742 (2007)
Using main content extraction to improve performance of Vietnamese web page classification

Web page classification is the process of categorizing a web page into one or more classes which have been predetermined. If we remove all HTML tags from a web page, then this process can be considered as a text classification problem. However, this approach does not achieve high precision due to noisy contents, which always exist in regular HTML documents. To address this problem, we propose using a content extraction method to extract the main contents of the web pages and use them for the classification task. Experimental results show that the proposed method significantly improves the precision of the Vietnamese web page classification from 71% to 80%. It also indicates that context features such as the anchor texts of reference links and the contents of tags "TITLE" can use as a good summarization for web page contents.
Kinetics of submicron oleic acid aerosols with ozone: A novel aerosol mass spectrometric technique

The reaction kinetics of submicron oleic (9‐octadecanoic (Z)‐) acid aerosols with ozone was studied using a novel aerosol mass spectrometric technique. In the apparatus a flow of size‐selected aerosols is introduced into a flow reactor where the particles are exposed to a known density of ozone for a controlled period of time. The aerosol flow is then directed into an aerosol mass spectrometer for particle size and composition analyses. Data from these studies were used to: (a) quantitatively model the size‐dependent kinetics process, (b) determine the aerosol size change due to uptake of ozone, (c) assess reaction stoichiometry, and (d) obtain qualitative information about the volatility of the reaction products. The reactive uptake probability for ozone on oleic acid particles obtained from modeling is 1.6 (±0.2) × 10−3 with an upper limit for the reacto‐diffusive length of ∼10 nm. Atmospheric implications of the results are discussed.
Study of the Chemical Composition of the Resinous Exudate Isolated from Heliotropium Sclerocarpum and Evaluation of the Antioxidant Properties of the Phenolic Compounds and the Resin

Heliotropium sclerocarpum Phil. (Heliotropiaceae) is a resinous bush that grows in the Atacama of northern Chile. The chemical composition of its resinous exudate was analyzed for the first time. One aromatic geranyl derivative: filifolinol (1), one flavanone: naringenin (2) and a new type of 3-oxo-2-arylbenzofuran derivative 3 were isolated and their structures were determined. The antioxidant activity of the phenolic compounds and resin was evaluated using the bleaching of DPPH radical method and expressed as fast reacting equivalents (FRE) and total reacting equivalents (TRE).