Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Infrared-Transparent Gold Nanoparticles Converted by Tumors to Infrared Absorbers Cure Tumors in Mice by Photothermal Therapy

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) absorb light and can be used to heat and ablate tumors. The “tissue window” at ∼800 nm (near infrared, NIR) is optimal for best tissue penetration of light. Previously, large, 50–150 nm, gold nanoshells and nanorods that absorb well in the NIR have been used. Small AuNPs that may penetrate tumors better unfortunately barely absorb at 800 nm. We show that small AuNPs conjugated to anti-tumor antibodies are taken up by tumor cells that catalytically aggregate them (by enzyme degradation of antibodies and pH effects), shifting their absorption into the NIR region, thus amplifying their photonic absorption. The AuNPs are NIR transparent until they accumulate in tumor cells, thus reducing background heating in blood and non-targeted cells, increasing specificity, in contrast to constructs that are always NIR-absorptive. Treatment of human squamous cell carcinoma A431 which overexpresses epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFr) in subcutaneous murine xenografts with anti-EGFr antibodies conjugated to 15 nm AuNPs and NIR resulted in complete tumor ablation in most cases with virtually no normal tissue damage. The use of targeted small AuNPs therefore provides a potent new method of selective NIR tumor therapy.
Heterotopic ossification after hip arthroscopy

Heterotopic ossification (HO) after hip arthroscopy is the abnormal formation of mature lamellar bone within extra skeletal soft tissues. HO may lead to pain, impaired range of motion and possibly revision surgery. There has been a substantial amount of recent research on the pathophysiology, prophylaxis and treatment of HO associated with open and arthroscopic hip surgery. This article reviews the literature on the aforementioned topics with a focus on their application in hip arthroscopy.
Iterative rework: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Iterative development can take many forms, depending on the project's goals: iterative prototyping can help evolve a user interface. Agile development is a way to closely involve a prototypical customer in a process that might repeat daily. Incremental build lets developers produce weekly builds of an evolving product. A spiral model can help the team confront and mitigate risk in an evolving product. Each iteration involves a certain amount of rework to enhance and fix existing capabilities (the good). However, excessive rework could indicate problems in the requirements, the developers' skills and motivation, the development processes or technology used, or all of the above (the bad). Exorbitant levels of rework result in truly untenable situations (the ugly). On the other hand, too little rework could indicate insufficient review and testing or too little anticipation of the product features needed to support the next version (bad that can turn ugly). Understanding and correcting the root causes of problems that result from too much or too little rework can significantly increase productivity, quality, developer morale, and customer satisfaction.
Scar Removal, Cell Transplantation, and Locomotor Training- Strategies to Improve Tissue Repair and Functional Recovery in Rat with Chronic Spinal Cord Injury

Great progress has been made over the past three decades with studies that have focused on the reversal of the symptoms of spinal cord injury (SCI). This progress has given hope that there is a possibility that tens of thousands of patients afflicted with this malady could gain both sensory and motor function again. According to estimates there are about 400,000 patients with chronic SCI who are confined to wheelchairs in the United States. However, significantly less attention has been lent to the study of chronic SCI. Although many approaches have been found to be beneficial leading to functional recovery from acute spinal cord injury, unfortunately, these interventions do not work on chronic SCI. Chronic SCI possesses a different pathophysiology that requires a different approach for effective treatment. One of the characteristic features of chronic SCI is the formation of a glial scar, which has been considered an obstacle for tissue repair and axonal regeneration. We believe that removal of the existing glial scar is necessary for tissue repair and axonal regeneration. In recent years our research work has been focused on glial scar removal, cell/tissue transplantation, and development of TANES (tail nerve electrical stimulation)-induced open field locomotor training to improve the locomotor outcome. These steps are synergistic and contribute to the final functional recovery. Results from our lab are encouraging and may be beneficial to further study of chronic SCI. In this article we will discuss the approaches we have administered and postulate their mechanisms.
Why do we like morally ambiguous characters? The ability of causal attributions to mediate character morality's impact on character appeal

WHY DO WE LIKE MORALLY AMBIGUOUS CHARACTERS? THE ABILITY OF CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS TO MEDIATE CHARACTER MORALITY’S IMPACT ON CHARACTER APPEAL By Clare Grall Entertainment studies have paid considerable attention to the psychological mechanisms that govern audience reactions to morally ambiguous characters in narrative drama. Researchers working in this area have begun to question the ability of affective disposition theory (ADT: Zillmann, 2000) to explain why audiences like morally ambiguous characters even when they perform behaviors normally considered unacceptable. The current paper replicates and extends a recent study by Bowman, Roman, and Knoster (2014) to determine whether the attributions made by audience members can explain their responses. Bowman et al. (2014) examined how the origin story of a morally ambiguous character in narrative drama can influence viewer dispositions and resultant enjoyment toward both the character and narrative. The origin story, often in the exposition of a story, gives us the background on the protagonist. Using logic from attribution theory, this study tests the proposition that the consistency of behaviors in a narrative will shape the attributions made by audience members, and that these attributions will mediate the influence of immoral behaviors on character and narrative appeal.
ECC over RSA for Asymmetric Encryption: A Review

Cryptography is used to transmit the data securely in open network. This paper gives the survey of Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC) used in many applications. ECC is a when compared to RSA and discrete logarithm systems, is a better option for the future. For this reason ECC is such an excellent choice for doing asymmetric cryptography in portable devices right now. The smaller ECC keys it turn makes the cryptographic operations that must be performed by the communicating devices to be embedded into considerably smaller hardware, so that software applications may complete cryptographic operations with fewer processor cycles, and operations can be performed much faster, while still retaining equivalent security. This means, in turn, reduced power consumption, less space consumed on the printed circuit board, and software applications that run more rapidly make lower memory demands. In brief, for communication using smaller devices and asymmetric cryptosystem we need ECC.
Communities as Nested Servicescapes

Using a long-duration service experience, this study proposed and tested a servicescape transference effects phenomenon of two nested multidimensional servicescape satisfaction constructs—labeled perceived nestscape and surroundscape satisfaction—on one another and on loyalty intentions. Both perceived servicescape satisfaction constructs positively affected loyalty intentions. The direction of effects between the two satisfaction constructs was found to emanate from satisfaction with the larger surroundscape to satisfaction with the smaller nestscape rather than the opposite direction. All dimensions of the servicescapes were significant, but the design dimension contributed the most to perceived nestscape satisfaction, while the social dimension had the greatest influence on surroundscape satisfaction. These findings suggest that managers of servicescapes should proactively respond to all dimensions of both the larger and the smaller contiguous servicescapes to heighten customer satisfaction and loyalty. In addition, servicescape engagement positively affected perceived surroundscape satisfaction, but not perceived nestscape satisfaction. Servicescape engagement moderated the nestscape and surroundscape effects by weakening the impacts of both constructs on loyalty intentions. Consequently, managers should provide superior levels of engagement activities for seasonal migrants less concerned with the servicescape and enhance perceived servicescape satisfaction for less engaged consumers to induce loyalty.
A tale of two states: how U.S. state legislatures consider restorative justice policies

Abstract This paper explores recent state legislative processes in Colorado and Texas related to bills proposing support for restorative justice as a juvenile diversion tool for criminal courts. It uses two maximum variation case studies to explore issue statements related to theoretically-supported factors likely to influence the adoption of restorative justice legislation, and draws conclusions about the importance of political partisanship, economic strain, and key figures such as policy entrepreneurs, advocacy coalitions, and interest groups in legislative decision-making. Emerging themes suggest that support for restorative justice policies is at least sometimes bipartisan and is unlikely to be motivated by economic interests. Collaborative processes within a traditionally adversarial system distinguished successful restorative justice decision-making in Colorado.
A Grey System Modeling Approach for Sliding-Mode Control of Antilock Braking System

In this paper, a grey sliding-mode controller is proposed to regulate the wheel slip, depending on the vehicle forward velocity. The proposed controller anticipates the upcoming values of wheel slip and takes the necessary action to keep the wheel slip at the desired value. The performance of the control algorithm as applied to a quarter vehicle is evaluated through simulations and experimental studies that include sudden changes in road conditions. It is observed that the proposed controller is capable of achieving faster convergence and better noise response than the conventional approaches. It is concluded that the use of grey system theory, which has certain prediction capabilities, can be a viable alternative approach when the conventional control methods cannot meet the desired performance specifications.
Does Formulation of Service Users’ Difficulties Improve Empathy in Forensic Mental Health Services?

ABSTRACT The culture and values of the National Health Service and the staff that work within it have received much attention over recent years. The erosion of empathy and compassionate care toward service users has been highlighted. Psychological formulation may be one way that clinicians can understand their service users more fully, which could lead to an improvement in the empathy they express toward them. The current study investigates the effect of presenting client information in a psychological formulation on self-reported empathy in staff in medium and low secure forensic mental health services. One hundred and fifty-four staff were recruited via convenience sampling to complete self-report questionnaires measuring burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory), state (Adapted Interpersonal Reactivity Index), and trait (Empathy Quotient) empathy. No significant difference in state empathy scores was observed among the staff in the formulated group when compared with the unformulated group. Linear multiple stepwise regressions demonstrated that trait empathy and burnout significantly predicted variance in state empathy, but the information format was not significant. It was concluded that mode of presentation in this instance did not influence the degree of empathic concern staff expressed toward a hypothetical client in a vignette. General levels of empathy and degree of burnout superseded this effect. Further research is needed on how adjusting client information formats might enhance empathy among professionals.
Differential evolution based human body pose estimation from point clouds

This paper describes a method to estimate the body pose of a human from the point cloud obtained from a depth sensor. It uses Differential Evolution to find the best match between a candidate pose, represented by an instance of a 42-parameter articulated model of a human, and the point cloud. The results, compared to other four state-of-the art methods on a publicly available dataset, show that the method has good ability to estimate the pose of a person and to track him in video sequences. The entire method, from Differential Evolution to fitness computation, is run on nVIDIA GPUs. Thanks to its massively parallel implementation in CUDA-C, it produces pose estimates in real time.
E. coli Heat-labile Enterotoxin B Subunit as a Platform for the Delivery of HIV Gag p24 Antigen

Multiple vaccination strategies have been devised against HIV-1 including delivery of HIV moieties in attenuated or replication defective recombinant microbial agents alone or in combination with priming agents in form of soluble proteins or naked DNA. For the priming agents to be effective, adjuvants might be essential in directing the immune response to a desired outcome. E. coli enterotoxin B subunit (LTB) is an effective adjuvant and carrier for other proteins and epitopes. Here we show that conjugation of HIV gag p24 to LTB enhances the T cell response to gag p24 by increasing rate of T cell division compared to other treatments. Because HIV vaccines are likely to be multivalent, we further investigated whether gag p24 inhibits antigen presentation of an unrelated antigen, OVA. Addition of gag p24 to OVA-responsive DO.11. 10 cell culture did not have adverse effects on antigen presentation. Interestingly, the presence of LTB in these cultures significantly increased proliferation of DO.11. 10 cells. In all, the results suggest the use of LTB to boost immune responses against HIV gag p24 in systemic priming regimens with oral recombinant HIV vaccines.
The influence of multiple stars on the high-mass stellar initial mass function and age-dating of young massive star clusters

The study of young stellar populations has revealed that most stars are in binary or higher order multiple systems. In this study, the influence on the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of large quantities of unresolved multiple massive stars is investigated by taking into account the stellar evolution and photometrically determined system masses. The models, where initial masses are derived from the luminosity and colour of unresolved multiple systems, show that even under extreme circumstances (100 per cent binaries or higher order multiples), the difference between the power-law index of the mass function (MF) of all stars and the observed MF is small (<0.1). Thus, if the observed IMF has the Salpeter index a = 2.35, then the true stellar IMF has an index not flatter than a = 2.25. Additionally, unresolved multiple systems may hide between 15 and 60 per cent of the underlying true mass of a star cluster. While already a known result, it is important to point out that the presence of a large number of unresolved binaries amongst pre-main-sequence stars induces a significant spread in the measured ages of these stars even if there is none. Also, lower mass stars in a single-age binary-rich cluster appear older than the massive stars by about 0.6 Myr.
An Analysis of the Use of Criterion in a Writing Classroom in Japan

Criterion is a web-based writing assessment system developed by English Testing Service (ETS) which automatically provides learners with feedback as well as a score on essays that are written using the system. This descriptive study examined 28 Japanese adult students’ TOEFL writing essays to explore what Criterion can and cannot do with regard to providing feedback on the essays. Criterion’s critique function was compared with a human instructor’s error feedback focusing on five error categories: verbs, word choice, nouns, articles, and sentence structures. The results revealed that Criterion experienced difficulties in detecting errors in all of the five categories. Through the study, it is suggested that Criterion should be implemented into a classroom with a team of teachers rather than as a standing-alone evaluation tool.
Non-rigid Articulated Point Set Registration for Human Pose Estimation

We propose a new non-rigid articulated point set registration framework for human pose estimation that aims at improving two recent registration techniques and filling the gap between the two. One is Coherent Point Drift (CPD) that is a powerful Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)-based non-rigid registration method, but may not be suitable for articulated deformations due to the violation of motion coherence assumption. The other is articulated ICP (AICP) that is effective for human pose estimation but prone to be trapped in local minima without good correspondence initialization. To bridge the gap of the two, a new non-rigid registration method, called Global-Local Topology Preservation (GLTP), is proposed by integrating a Local Linear Embedding (LLE) -based topology constraint with CPD in a GMM-based formulation, which accommodates articulated non-rigid deformations and provides reliable correspondence estimation for AICP initialization. The experiments on both 3D scan data and depth images demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
Which method to deliver heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy with oxaliplatin ? An experimental comparison of open and closed techniques

Background. Heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) achieves good results in selected patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis. There are two main procedures to deliver this therapy: the open abdomen and the closed abdomen technique. A true comparison of the two techniques has never been performed and is lacking in the literature. The aim of this study was to compare blood and abdominal tissue concentrations of oxaliplatin after open and closed techniques to deliver HIPEC. Methods. Nine pigs underwent a HIPEC at 42-43°C for 30 minutes using oxaliplatin (400 mg/m 2 ) according to two techniques: closed (3 animals) or open (6 animals). Open technique used either an external heater with a pump (3 animals) or an intra-abdominal heating cable (3 animals) to achieve hyperthermia. Temperature homogeneity, systemic absorption and abdominal tissue mapping of the penetration of oxaliplatin with each technique were studied. Two additional pigs underwent hyperthermia using dyes instead of oxaliplatin to depict the distribution of the liquid within the abdomen with both techniques. Results. Hyperthermia was satisfactory with both techniques. The closed technique achieved higher temperatures within the diaphragmatic area, while the open obtained higher temperatures in the mid and lower abdomen (p<0.001 for both comparisons). The systemic absorption of oxaliplatin was higher with the open technique (p<0.04 for all comparisons), as was the accumulation within the abdominal cavity. The operating time for the two techniques was not significantly different. Conclusion. Intraperitoneal hyperthermia can be achieved with both techniques. The open technique showed significantly higher systemic absorption and abdominal tissue penetration of oxaliplatin than the closed technique. in se rm -0 04 56 65 2, v er si on 1 15 F eb 2 01 0
Neurotensin Agonist Attenuates Nicotine Potentiation to Cocaine Sensitization

Tobacco usage typically precedes illicit drug use in adolescent and young adult populations. Several animal studies suggest nicotine increases the risk for subsequent cocaine abuse, and may be a negative prognostic factor for treatment of cocaine addiction; i.e., a “gateway drug”. Neurotensin (NT) is a 13-amino acid neuropeptide that modulates dopamine, acetylcholine, glutamate, and GABA neurotransmission in brain reward pathways. NT69L, a NT(8-13) analog, blocks behavioral sensitization (an animal model for psychostimulant addiction) to nicotine, and nicotine self-administration in rats. The present study tested the effect of NT69L on the potentiating effects of nicotine on cocaine-induced locomotor sensitization. Male Wistar rats were injected daily for seven days with nicotine or saline (control) followed by four daily injections of cocaine. NT69L was administered 30 min prior to the last cocaine injection. Behavior was recorded with the use of activity chambers. Subchronic administration of nicotine enhanced cocaine-induced behavioral sensitization in Wistar rats, consistent with an hypothesized gateway effect. These behavioral effects of cocaine were attenuated by pretreatment with NT69L. The effect of the neurotensin agonist on cocaine sensitization in the nicotine treated group indicated a possible therapeutic effect for cocaine addiction, even in the presence of enhanced behavioral sensitization induced by nicotine.
Health production and risk of obesity among Chilean adolescents: Understanding health related behaviors in youth

Background: Adolescent obesity is associated with high cardiovascular and metabolic risk. Western diet and reduced physical activity are strong environmental determinants. The “Health Production” model posits that individuals born with a certain amount of health stock, which depreciates over life, but can be augmented by individual behaviors, including exercise and dieting. Objective: To study the association between health production and obesity in a random sample of 1692 Chilean adolescents (14.8 ± 0.7 years old), and to study the effect of gender and socioeconomic characteristics on health production. Method: We used an indicator that considered the quality of food intake and physical activity, establishing three categories: good (GHP), intermediate (IHP) and poor health producers (PHP). Multivariate analysis was used to study the odds of obesity and good health production. Results: There was 31% of GHP, 32% of IHP and 38% of PHP. Obesity (Adj. OR: 1.59; 95%CI: 1.04 - 2.42) and abdominal obesity (Adj. OR: 2.24; 95%CI: 1.35 - 3.40) were significantly higher in the PHP group, compared to the GHP and IHP group. Health production was significantly associated with socioeconomic factors and gender. Female sex and coming from a less wealthy household significantly reduced the odds of good health production. Conclusions: Poor health production in adolescence, as defined by food intake and physical activity, depreciates individuals’ “health stock”, increasing the risk of obesity. In our sample, health production was strongly associated with socio-economic factors and gender.