Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modeling and simulation of epidemic spread: Recent advances

Epidemics have disturbed human lives for centuries causing massive numbers of deaths and illnesses among people and animals. As the number of urbanized and mobile population has increased, the possibility of a worldwide pandemic has grown too. The latest advances in high-performance computing and computational network science can help computational epidemiologists to develop large-scale high-fidelity models of epidemic spread. These models can help to characterize the large-scale patterns of epidemics and guide public health officials and policy makers in taking appropriate decisions to prevent and control such epidemics. This paper presents an overview of the epidemic spread modeling and simulation, and summarizes the main technical challenges in this field. It further investigates the most relevant recent approaches carried out towards this perspective and provides a comparison and classification of these approaches.
Two-Dimensional Modeling and Analysis of Generalized Random Mobility Models for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Most important characteristics of wireless ad hoc networks, such as link distance distribution, connectivity, and network capacity are dependent on the long-run properties of the mobility profiles of communicating terminals. Therefore, the analysis of the mobility models proposed for these networks becomes crucial. The contribution of this paper is to provide an analytical framework that is generalized enough to perform the analysis of realistic random movement models over two-dimensional regions. The synthetic scenarios that can be captured include hotspots where mobiles accumulate with higher probability and spend more time, and take into consideration location and displacement dependent speed distributions. By the utilization of the framework to the random waypoint mobility model, we derive an approximation to the spatial distribution of terminals over rectangular regions. We validate the accuracy of this approximation via simulation, and by comparing the marginals with proven results for one-dimensional regions, we find out that the quality of the approximation is insensitive to the proportion between dimensions of the terrain.
Understand IS Continuance: A Technology Commitment Perspective

Incorporating commitment theory from social psychology and management science literature, this paper proposes a IS continuance model that explains users’ intention to continuously use IS technologies. We argue that users’ intention to continue using a IS technology (i.e., IS continuance) is determined by their commitment to that specific technology and moderated by the brand-specific technology product. Three dimensions of technology commitment, affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment, are identified to formulate a research model. The hypotheses are empirically tested and the model accounts for 70.9% of variances. Results and contributions of this research-in-progress model are discussed.
Mechanical-Stretch of C2C12 Myoblasts Inhibits Expression of Toll-Like Receptor 3 (TLR3) and of Autoantigens Associated with Inflammatory Myopathies

Recent studies in patients suffering from inflammatory autoimmune myopathies suggested that moderate exercise training improves or at least stabilizes muscle strength and function without inducing disease ﬂares. However, the precise mechanisms involved in this beneficial effect have not been extensively studied. Here we used a model of in vitro stretched C2C12 myoblasts to investigate whether mechanical stretch could influence myoblast proliferation or the expression of proinflammatory genes. Our results demonstrated that cyclic mechanical stretch stimulated C2C12 cell cycling and early up-regulation of the molecules related to mechanical-stretch pathway in muscle (calmodulin, nNOS, MMP-2, HGF and c-Met). Unexpectedly, mechanical stretch also reduced the expression of TLR3 and of proteins known to represent autoantigens in inflammatory autoimmune myopathies (Mi-2, HRS, DNA-PKcs, U1-70). Interestingly, stimulation or inhibition of calmodulin, NOS, HGF or c-Met molecules in vitro affected the expression of autoantigens and TLR3 proteins confirming their role in the inhibition of autoantigens and TLR3 during mechanical stretch. Overall, this study demonstrates for the first time that mechanical stretch could be beneficial by reducing expression of muscle autoantigens and of pro-inflammatory TLR3 and may provide new insight to understand how resistance training can reduce the symptoms associated with myositis.
A Parameterized Post-Friedmann Framework for Modified Gravity

We develop a parametrized post-Friedmann (PPF) framework which describes three regimes of modified gravity models that accelerate the expansion without dark energy. On large scales, the evolution of scalar metric and density perturbations must be compatible with the expansion history defined by distance measures. On intermediate scales in the linear regime, they form a scalar-tensor theory with a modified Poisson equation. On small scales in dark matter halos such as our own galaxy, modifications must be suppressed in order to satisfy stringent local tests of general relativity. We describe these regimes with three free functions and two parameters: the relationship between the two metric fluctuations, the large and intermediate scale relationships to density fluctuations, and the two scales of the transitions between the regimes. We also clarify the formal equivalence of modified gravity and generalized dark energy. The PPF description of linear fluctuation in f(R) modified action and the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati braneworld models show excellent agreement with explicit calculations. Lacking cosmological simulations of these models, our nonlinear halo-model description remains an ansatz but one that enables well-motivated consistency tests of general relativity. The required suppression of modifications within dark matter halos suggests that the linear and weakly nonlinear regimes are better suited for making a complementary test of general relativity than the deeply nonlinear regime.
Quantitative Study of the Rate of Recovery From Aphasia Due to Ischemic Stroke

The extent of recovery from aphasia following ischemic stroke has been evaluated by a quantitative method. The greatest improvement was observed during the first 3 months following onset. The rate of recovery was similar for expression and for comprehension, but comprehension was usually less disturbed than expression. Final prognosis depends on the type of aphasia (the poorest prognosis was found for total or global aphasia) and on the severity of the initial insult.
Protein Microarrays and Biomarkers of Infectious Disease

Protein microarrays are powerful tools that are widely used in systems biology research. For infectious diseases, proteome microarrays assembled from proteins of pathogens will play an increasingly important role in discovery of diagnostic markers, vaccines, and therapeutics. Distinct formats of protein microarrays have been developed for different applications, including abundance-based and function-based methods. Depending on the application, design issues should be considered, such as the need for multiplexing and label or label free detection methods. New developments, challenges, and future demands in infectious disease research will impact the application of protein microarrays for discovery and validation of biomarkers.
COLLUSION ATTACKS ON SECRET KEYS MULTIPLICATION ( SKM ) GROUP RE-KEYING SCHEME PROPOSED AT CITA 03

In this paper, we present collusion attacks on a very recently proposed group re-keying scheme, the Secret Keys Multiplication (SKM). Users can conspire together (collude) to obtain the private key of the trusted group controller server. This is a very serious weakness in the SKM and shows that it is not secure at all. It should therefore not be used, but should go through a major redesign.
Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Expression in Esophageal Adenocarcinoma: Relationship with Tumor Stage and Survival after Esophagectomy

Background and Aims. Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA) is an aggressive tumor with increasing incidence in occidental countries. Several prognostic biomarkers have been proposed, including epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The aim of this study was to assess whether EGFR expression predicts EA staging and patient survival. Methods. In this historical cohort, consecutive patients with EA managed between 2000 and 2010 were considered eligible for the study. Surgical specimens of patients treated with transhiatal esophagectomy were evaluated to establish EGFR expression and tumor differentiation. Staging was classified according with tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) system. Survival was determined according to either medical register or patient's family contact. Results. Thirty-seven patients who underwent esophagectomy without presurgical chemotherapy or radiotherapy were studied. EGFR expression was found in 16 patients (43%). EGFR expression was more frequent as higher was the TNM (I and II = 0% versus III = 47% versus IV = 100%; P < 0.001). Average survival in months was significantly shorter in the group of patients with EGFR expression (10.5 versus 21.7; P = 0.001). Conclusions. In patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma treated with transhiatal esophagectomy, EGFR expression was related to higher TNM staging and shorter survival. EGFR expression might be assumed as a prognostic marker for esophageal adenocarcinoma.
Dead reckoning from the pocket - An experimental study

Modern mobile phones enable absolute positioning based on GPS or WiFi. However, incremental positioning based on dead reckoning is an interesting source of complementary information, e.g., for indoor positioning or for filling in reception gaps. In the literature however, reasonable dead reckoning accuracies have been reported for fixed and typically a priori known device placements only, e.g., on the hip. Therefore, this paper contributes an experimental study of several published as well as novel approaches for dead reckoning in a scenario with unconstrained placement of a device in the user's trouser pockets. Utilizing the movement of a sensor in a trouser pocket due to body motion, we estimate the user's walking direction and steps robustly for arbitrary placements in the pocket and without additional body-worn sensors. We evaluate these methods on a large dataset of 23 traces of 8 different persons, and compare different approaches.
Quantification of small cerebral ventricular volume changes in treated growth hormone patients using nonrigid registration

Nonrigid registration can automatically quantify small changes in volume of anatomical structures over time by means of segmentation propagation. Here, we use a nonrigid registration algorithm based on optimising normalized mutual information to quantify small changes in brain ventricle volume in magnetic resonance (MR) images of a group of five patients treated with growth hormone replacement therapy and a control group of six volunteers. The lateral ventricles are segmented from each subject image by registering with the brainweb image which has this structure delineated. The mean (standard deviation) volume change measurements are 1.09 (0.73) cm/sup 3/ for the patient group and 0.08 (0.62) cm/sup 3/ for the volunteer group; this difference is statistically significant at the 1% level. We validate our volume measurements by determining the precision from three consecutive scans of five volunteers and also comparing the measurements to previously published volume change estimates obtained by visual inspection of difference images. Results demonstrate a precision of /spl sigma/ /spl les/ 0.52 cm/sup 3/ (n = 5) and a rank correlation coefficient with assessed difference images of /spl rho/ = 0.7 (n = 11). To determine the level of shape correspondence we manually segmented subject's ventricles and compared them to the propagations using a voxel overlap similarity index, this gave a mean similarity index of 0.81 (n = 7).
Essential fatty acids and mood: A systematic review of observational studies

Objective: Essential polyunsaturated (omega-3 and omega-6) fatty acids have been proposed to play a role in the aetiology of mood disorders. However, a systematic review of observational studies has not yet been conducted. Therefore, our aim was to conduct a systematic review of the studies which have investigated the relationship between essential fatty acids and mood in the past 15 years. Methods: Four databases (EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and ISI Web of Science) were searched for human observational studies of the relationship between essential fatty acids and mood that were published between 1995 and 2009. Results: The search yielded a total of 77 papers which met the inclusion criteria. Many of the studies were small, and the methods heterogeneous. Of the studies which investigated dietary fish intake and mood, 75% found a benefit. While 69% of the dietary intake studies observed an inverse relationship between mood and n-3 intake, 82% of the studies which investigated n-3 biomarker status and mood supported a significant inverse association between these two factors. Conclusions: The findings of the present review suggest that omega-3 fatty acids are potentially beneficial in enhancing mood and reducing the symptoms of mood disorders (including major depression and bipolar disorder), however the heterogeneity with respect to the methodologies employed by studies in the area renders it difficult to draw absolute conclusions. Further longitudinal studies are warranted in order to determine causality. Dietary fish intake appears to be beneficial in terms of enhancing mood.
From Assessment to Purchase: A Three-Stage Model of the Marketing Funnel in Sponsorship Activities

In this research we develop a comprehensive model of sponsorship effects accounting for behavioral outcomes such as actual purchase, purchase intentions, and word-of-mouth referral intention. We recombine constructs that have been traditionally considered separately into three stages—assessment, elaboration, and behavior. We collect data on actual customers of Nike and Adidas flagship stores during the FIFA World Cup sponsorship. Basing on our results, we provide a consumer-oriented perspective on the role of attitude toward the brand, fit, and involvement with the event in determining customer reaction to sponsorship activities.
PP + PS = SS

Converted (PS) waves can provide important information about shear‐wave velocity and, in the presence of anisotropy, about the medium parameters responsible for both P‐ and S‐wave propagation. Kinematics and amplitudes of reflected PS‐waves, however, possess such undesirable features as moveout asymmetry, reflection point dispersal, and polarity reversal, which preclude application of conventional velocity‐analysis methods to mode conversions.Rather than using PS‐wave kinematics directly, here we propose a method for reconstructing SS‐wave reflection traveltimes from PP and PS data. The required preprocessing steps include picking of PP and PS traveltimes on prestack data and identification (correlation) of the PP and PS events from the same interfaces. The key idea of the method is to match the reflection slopes (horizontal slownesses) on common‐receiver PP and PS gathers. This procedure allows us to find the coordinates of receivers that record PP‐ and PS‐waves reflected at exactly the same (albeit unkn.
Effect of Age and Cognition on Childhood Speech in Noise Perception Abilities

This research on children’s speech in noise and cognitive abilities aimed to determine the age-related trends in speech in noise perception abilities and the relationship between speech in noise perception and cognitive abilities. Monosyllabic distinguishable (consonant-vowel-consonant) words was the most recognisable word category, followed by monosyllabic confusable words (consonant-vowel-consonant), disyllabic non-words (/aCa/) and monosyllabic syllables (/Ca/), demonstrating that phoneme distinctiveness and a reduction in word confusability contribute to their recognition. Older children outperformed younger children on all speech in noise tasks, indicating that there are age-related trends in speech in noise abilities. Children with higher cognitive abilities did not outperform children with lower cognitive abilities on speech in noise tasks, indicating that the ability to hear speech in noise may be an intrinsic feature of the auditory system that matures with age.
On Longest Repeat Queries

Repeat finding in strings has important applications in subfields such as computational biology. Surprisingly, all prior work on repeat finding did not consider the constraint on the locality of repeats. In this paper, we propose and study the problem of finding longest repetitive substrings covering particular string positions. We propose an $O(n)$ time and space algorithm for finding the longest repeat covering every position of a string of size $n$. Our work is optimal since the reading and the storage of an input string of size $n$ takes $O(n)$ time and space. Because any substring of a repeat is also a repeat, our solution to longest repeat queries effectively provides a "stabbing" tool for practitioners for finding most of the repeats that cover particular string positions.
Clinical parameters related to optimal tumor localization of indium-111-labeled mouse antimelanoma monoclonal antibody ZME-018.

Radioimmunolocalization of an 111In-labeled mouse antimelanoma monoclonal antibody (MoAb), ZME-018, was examined in 21 patients with metastatic malignant melanoma. Each patient received a single. i.v. infusion of MoAb at concentrations ranging from 1 mg to 20 mg, coupled to 5 mCi 111In by the chelating agent DPTA. No toxicity was observed in any patient. Total-body and regions of interest scans performed at 4, 24, and 72 hr following MoAb administration revealed uptake in 63 out of 105 previously diagnosed metastases for an overall sensitivity of 60%. Uptake was consistently observed in liver/spleen, and less frequently in bowel, testes, axillae and bone. Sensitivity of detection increased significantly at doses of MoAb above 2.5 mg, with 74% of lesions imaging at 20 mg/5 mCi compared with 29% at 2.5 mg/5 mCi (p less than 0.005). A significant correlation was observed between tumor uptake of 111In-MoAb conjugate and increasing tumor size. Soft-tissue lesions such as skin and lymph node metastases were imaged to a greater extent (76%) than visceral metastases (19%). In five of six patients, biopsies obtained from 3 days to 14 days after MoAb administration showed antibody present on tumor cells as demonstrated by flow cytometry and/or radioimmunoassay. Human anti-murine immunoglobulin responses were observed in seven of 17 patients studied. Mean plasma clearance of ZME-018 was prolonged with a T1/2 of 24.7 hr and increased slightly with increasing MoAb dose. Urinary excretion of 111In averaged 12.4% of the injected dose over 48 hours. Radioimmunolocalization of melanoma with 111In-labeled ZME-018 appears feasible. The sensitivity of the technique was related to dose, tumor size, and disease site.
A New Aurora in Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer Therapy

Anaplastic thyroid cancers (ATC) are among the most aggressive human neoplasms with a dire prognosis and a median survival time of few months from the diagnosis. The complete absence of effective therapies for ATC renders the identification of novel therapeutic approaches sorely needed. Chromosomal instability, a feature of all human cancers, is thought to represent a major driving force in thyroid cancer progression and a number of mitotic kinases showing a deregulated expression in malignant thyroid tissues are now held responsible for thyroid tumor aneuploidy. These include the three members of the Aurora family (Aurora-A, Aurora-B, and Aurora-C), serine/threonine kinases that regulate multiple aspects of chromosome segregation and cytokinesis. Over the last few years, several small molecule inhibitors targeting Aurora kinases were developed, which showed promising antitumor effects against a variety of human cancers, including ATC, in preclinical studies. Several of these molecules are now being evaluated in phase I/II clinical trials against advanced solid and hematological malignancies. In the present review we will describe the structure, expression, and mitotic functions of the Aurora kinases, their implications in human cancer progression, with particular regard to ATC, and the effects of their functional inhibition on malignant cell proliferation.
Genetic Landscapes of Relapsed and Refractory Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphomas

Purpose: Relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (rrDLBCL) is fatal in 90% of patients, and yet little is known about its biology. Experimental Design: Using exome sequencing, we characterized the mutation profiles of 38 rrDLBCL biopsies obtained at the time of progression after immunochemotherapy. To identify genes that may be associated with relapse, we compared the mutation frequency in samples obtained at relapse to an unrelated cohort of 138 diagnostic DLBCLs and separately amplified specific mutations in their matched diagnostic samples to identify clonal expansions. Results: On the basis of a higher frequency at relapse and evidence for clonal selection, TP53, FOXO1, MLL3 (KMT2C), CCND3, NFKBIZ, and STAT6 emerged as top candidate genes implicated in therapeutic resistance. We observed individual examples of clonal expansions affecting genes whose mutations had not been previously associated with DLBCL including two regulators of NF-κB: NFKBIE and NFKBIZ. We detected mutations that may be affect sensitivity to novel therapeutics, such as MYD88 and CD79B mutations, in 31% and 23% of patients with activated B-cell–type of rrDLBCL, respectively. We also identified recurrent STAT6 mutations affecting D419 in 36% of patients with the germinal center B (GCB) cell rrDLBCL. These were associated with activated JAK/STAT signaling, increased phospho-STAT6 protein expression and increased expression of STAT6 target genes. Conclusions: This work improves our understanding of therapeutic resistance in rrDLBCL and has identified novel therapeutic opportunities especially for the high-risk patients with GCB-type rrDLBCL. Clin Cancer Res; 22(9); 2290–300. ©2015 AACR.
Disparities Between Aortic and Peripheral Pulse Pressures Induced by Upright Exercise and Vasomotor Changes in Man

Blood pressures were recorded simultaneously from the aortic arch and radial artery using two manometric systems with identical static and dynamic sensitivities. Measurements were made in four normal young men at rest and upright exercise requiring 29, 49, 78, and 100% of maximal oxygen uptake. Average radial arterial pressure rose from 133/66 mm Hg at rest to 236/58 mm Hg at maximal exercise. At the same time, average aortic pressures were 112/68 and 154/70 mm Hg, respectively. From rest to maximal exercise, pulse pressures at central and peripheral sites increased by factors of 1.95 and 2.60, respectively. Inducing reactive hyperemia in the arm abolished peripheral amplification. This amplification also diminished with time during prolonged heavy exercise. Mean pressures were nearly identical at the two sites at any oxygen uptake; mean pressures rose from 87 to 104 mm Hg from mild to maximal exercise. We conclude that estimates of stress on aortic and cerebral vessel walls and central baroreceptors would be grossly overestimated by use of peripheral pulse pressures.