Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hemophagocytosis in Experimental Visceral Leishmaniasis by Leishmania donovani

Hemophagocytosis is a phenomenon in which macrophages phagocytose blood cells. There are reports on up-regulated hemophagocytosis in patients with infectious diseases including typhoid fever, tuberculosis, influenza and visceral leishmaniasis (VL). However, mechanisms of infection-associated hemophagocytosis remained elusive due to a lack of appropriate animal models. Here, we have established a mouse model of VL with hemophagocytosis. At 24 weeks after infection with 1 x 107 Leishmania donovani promastigotes, BALB/cA mice exhibited splenomegaly with an average tissue weight per body weight of 2.96%. In the tissues, 28.6% of macrophages contained phagocytosed erythrocytes. All of the hemophagocytosing macrophages were parasitized by L. donovani, and higher levels of hemophagocytosis was observed in heavily infected cells. Furthermore, more than half of these hemophagocytes had two or more macrophage-derived nuclei, whereas only 15.0% of splenic macrophages were bi- or multi-nuclear. These results suggest that direct infection by L. donovani causes hyper-activation of host macrophages to engulf blood cells. To our knowledge, this is the first report on hemophagocytosis in experimental Leishmania infections and may be useful for further understanding of the pathogenesis.
Using Mathematical Modelling to Explore Hypotheses about the Role of Bovine Epithelium Structure in Foot-And-Mouth Disease Virus-Induced Cell Lysis

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious disease of cloven-hoofed animals. FMD virus (FMDV) shows a strong tropism for epithelial cells, and FMD is characterised by cell lysis and the development of vesicular lesions in certain epithelial tissues (for example, the tongue). By contrast, other epithelial tissues do not develop lesions, despite being sites of viral replication (for example, the dorsal soft palate). The reasons for this difference are poorly understood, but hypotheses are difficult to test experimentally. In order to identify the factors which drive cell lysis, and consequently determine the development of lesions, we developed a partial differential equation model of FMDV infection in bovine epithelial tissues and used it to explore a range of hypotheses about epithelium structure which could be driving differences in lytic behaviour observed in different tissues. Our results demonstrate that, based on current parameter estimates, epithelial tissue thickness and cell layer structure are unlikely to be determinants of FMDV-induced cell lysis. However, differences in receptor distribution or viral replication amongst cell layers could influence the development of lesions, but only if viral replication rates are much lower than current estimates.
A 2.5-Gb/s Multi-Rate 0.25-$\mu$m CMOS Clock and Data Recovery Circuit Utilizing a Hybrid Analog/Digital Loop Filter and All-Digital Referenceless Frequency Acquisition

A 0.25-mum CMOS, multi-rate clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit that leverages unique analog/digital boundaries in its phase detector and loop filter to achieve a fully integrated CDR implementation with excellent performance, compact area, and low power dissipation is presented. Key circuit blocks include a phase-to-digital converter that combines a Hogge detector with a continuous-time first-order Sigma-Delta analog-to-digital converter, and a hybrid loop filter that contains an analog feedforward path and digital integrating path. In addition, an all-digital frequency acquisition method that does not require a reference frequency, quadrature phases from the VCO, or a significant amount of high-speed logic is presented. A nice byproduct of the frequency acquisition circuitry is that it also provides an estimate of the bit error rate (BER) experienced by the CDR. The CDR exceeds all SONET performance requirements at 155-, 622-, and 2500-Mb/s as well as Gigabit Ethernet specifications at 1.25 Gb/s. The chip operates with either a 2.5- or 3.3-V supply, consumes a maximum of 197 mA across all data rates, and fits in a 5times5 mm package
Tectal mosaic: Organization of the descending tectal projections in comparison to the ascending tectofugal pathway in the pigeon

The optic tectum of vertebrates is an essential relay station for visuomotor behavior and is characterized by a set of connections that comprises topographically ordered input from the eyes and an output that reaches premotor hindbrain regions. In the avian tectofugal system, different ascending cell classes have recently been identified based on their dendritic and axonal projection patterns, although comparable information about the descending cells is missing. By means of retrograde tracing, the present study describes the detailed morphology of tectal output neurons that constitute the descending tectobulbar and tectopontine pathways in pigeons. Descending cells were more numerous in the dorsal tectum and differed in terms of 1) their relative amount of ipsi‐ vs. contralateral projections, 2) the location of the efferent cell bodies within different tectal layers, and 3) their differential access to visual input via dendritic ramifications within the outer retinorecipient laminae. Thus, the descending tectal system is constituted by different cell classes presumably processing diverse aspects of the visual environment in a visual field‐dependent manner. We demonstrate, based on a careful morphological analysis and on double‐labeling experiments, that the descending pathways are largely separated from the ascending projections even when they arise from the same layers. These data support the concept that the tectum is arranged as a mosaic of multiple cell types with diverse input functions at the same location of the tectal map. Such an arrangement would enable the tectal projections onto diverse areas to be both retinotopically organized and functionally specific. J. Comp. Neurol. 472:395–410, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Incentives for Delay-Constrained Data Query and Feedback in Mobile Opportunistic Crowdsensing

In this paper, we propose effective data collection schemes that stimulate cooperation between selfish users in mobile opportunistic crowdsensing. A query issuer generates a query and requests replies within a given delay budget. When a data provider receives the query for the first time from an intermediate user, the former replies to it and authorizes the latter as the owner of the reply. Different data providers can reply to the same query. When a user that owns a reply meets the query issuer that generates the query, it requests the query issuer to pay credits. The query issuer pays credits and provides feedback to the data provider, which gives the reply. When a user that carries a feedback meets the data provider, the data provider pays credits to the user in order to adjust its claimed expertise. Queries, replies and feedbacks can be traded between mobile users. We propose an effective mechanism to define rewards for queries, replies and feedbacks. We formulate the bargain process as a two-person cooperative game, whose solution is found by using the Nash theorem. To improve the credit circulation, we design an online auction process, in which the wealthy user can buy replies and feedbacks from the starving one using credits. We have carried out extensive simulations based on real-world traces to evaluate the proposed schemes.
Consumption, youth and new media: The debate on social issues in Brazil

The development of the information technology and media in general have brought not only more information and communication, but also new consumer cultures as well as new kinds of consumer, especially among young people. In Brazil, the information society along with the Internet and the mobile phone is just beginning, since a large segment of the population still has no access to these devices due to factors as education and financial resources. Both this paper and the empirical research are based on the original survey Consumer Cultures of Young People in the Changing Information Society, carried on in 2001 in Finland and replicated in Rio de Janeiro (approximately the same population as in Finland), Brazil and two rural areas, between February and May 2003. The survey focused on the consumption habits and lifestyles of Brazilian teenagers 16-20 years old, and the data were collected from middle-level private schools, federal public schools and first year university courses. The sample included 736 students required to fill a questionnaire (60 questions) covering themes as the individual consumption and money use, mobile phone and the Internet, issues on environment and security. This survey aims to map young people’s attitudes towards IT and consumption in Rio de Janeiro and identify eventual connections between them. A future use of the data might be a cross-cultural study between Finland and Brazil.
Digital literacy of preservice science teacher

The development of digital technology takes place very quickly and gives significant influences in various areas of life including education. The Standards of Academic Qualification and Teacher Competence has integrated the digital literacy on the competences of professional teachers. College has a big hand in equipping teachers with various competencies so that teachers are ready in carrying out their duties as educators. This study aims to identify the digital literacy of preservice science teacher who have attended science lectures. By using the Likert scaled questionnaire and guided interview, the researcher tries to explore five areas of digital literacy consisting of information, communication, content creation, safety, and problem solving. The results of this study indicate the digital literacy of preservice science teacher are in the medium category with the composition; information (2.97), communication (2.95), content creation (2.64), safety (2.63), and problem solving (2.12). It takes program that can stimulate the improvement digital literacy of preservice science teacher in order to able to innovate science learning activities using technology.
Dynamics and determinants of Staphylococcus aureus carriage in livestock veterinarians: a prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND Since 2003, a new clade of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) belonging to clonal complex (CC) 398 and associated with animal husbandry has emerged in the Netherlands. The purpose of this study was to determine the dynamics of carriage in persons with direct contact to livestock. METHODS A 2-year prospective cohort study was performed in which the anterior nares and oropharynx of 137 livestock veterinarians were sampled for the presence of S. aureus every 4 months during the first year and again 1 year later. All S. aureus isolates were genotyped by staphylococcal protein A (spa) typing and with multilocus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA). RESULTS The mean prevalence of MRSA CC398 carriage was 44% (range, 42%-46%), and for S. aureus the prevalence was 72% (range, 69%-75%). Thirty-two veterinarians (23%) were always carrying MRSA CC398 and 18 of those (56%, 13% of all veterinarians) had identical MLVA types at all sampling moments. CONCLUSIONS A high proportion of veterinarians had persistent MRSA CC398 carriage during the 2-year study period, indicating that this variant may colonize humans for prolonged periods. Furthermore, prevalence of S. aureus carriage was extremely high, indicating that MRSA CC398 is not replacing the susceptible strains, but comes on top of it.
Characteristics of Glial Reaction in the Perinatal Rat Cortex: Effect of Lesion Size in the ‘Critical Period’

In this study we investigate the capability of lesions, performed between embryonic day E18 and postnatal day P6, to provoke glial reaction. Two different lesion types were applied: ‘severe’ lesion (tissue defect) and ’light’ lesion (stab wound). The glial reaction was detected with immunostain[ng against glial fibrillary acidic protein. When performed as early as P0, severe lesions could result in reactive gliosis, which persisted even after a month. The glial reaction was detected at P6/P7 and became strong by P8, regardless of the age when the animals were lesioned between P0 and P5. Namely, a strict limit could be estimated for the age when reactive glia were already found rather than for the age when glial reaction-provoking lesions could occur. After prenatal lesions, no glial reaction developed, but the usual glia limitans covered the deformed brain, surface. Light lesions provoked glial reactions when performed at P6. In conclusion, three scenarios were found, depending on the age of the animal at injury: (i) healing without glial reaction, regardless of the remaining deformation; (ii) depending on the size of the lesion, either healing without residuum or with remaining tissue defect plus reactive gliosis; and (iii) healing always with reactive gliosis. The age limits between them were at P0 and P5. The glial reactivity seemingly appears after the end of the neuronal migration and just precedes the massive transformation of the radial glia into astrocytes. Estimating the position of the appearance of glial reactivity among the events of cortical maturation can help to adapt the experimental results to humans.
Aperture synthesis of time-limited X waves and analysis of their propagation characteristics

The feasibility of exciting a localized X-wave pulse from a finite aperture is addressed. Also, the possibility of using a finite-time excitation of a dynamic aperture to generate a finite-energy approximation to an X-wave pulse is explored. The analysis is carried out by using a Gaussian time window to time limit the infinite X-wave initial excitation. Huygens’ construction is used to calculate the amplitude of the radiated wave field away from the finite-time source. The decay rate of the peak of the X wave is compared to that of a quasi-monochromatic signal. It is shown that the finite-time X-wave propagates to much farther distances without significant decay. Furthermore, the decay pattern of the radiated X-wave pulse is derived for a source consisting of an array of concentric annular sections. The decay behavior of the radiated pulse is similar to that of an X-wave launched from a finite-time aperture. This confirms the fact that time windowing the infinite energy X-wave excitation is a viable schem.
An accurate method to determine Bowman's layer thickness in vivo in the human cornea.

PURPOSE To determine an accurate value for Bowman's layer (BL) thickness in vivo in humans. METHODS Seventeen corneal transplant patients were examined preoperatively by laser-scanning in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM), and corneal buttons were removed postoperatively and sectioned for light microscopy (LM). Nine corneas with uniformly thick BL by LM were used for thickness measurement. In the uniformly thick samples, probable overestimation of BL thickness in vivo by a first in vivo method (Method 1) led to the development of a revised in vivo method (Method 2). Method 2 was used to measure BL thickness in 20 healthy volunteers. RESULTS In nine patients, mean BL thickness prior to transplantation was 13.7 ± 1.6 μm by IVCM (Method 1) while BL thickness of the removed corneal button was 9.7 ± 1.7 μm by LM (P < 0.001). The correlation of BL thickness between IVCM (Method 1) and LM was poor (P = 0.226). In 20 right eyes of 20 normal corneas, both in vivo methods were used to determine BL thickness. Mean BL thickness by Method 1 was 13.2 ± 1.6 μm and by Method 2 was 9.1 ± 1.4 μm (P < 0.001). BL thickness measurements by both in vivo methods were highly correlated (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION BL thickness by a revised in vivo method was close to LM values in this study and to values reported in fixed tissue in other studies. The authors believe this revised method provides the most accurate estimates of BL thickness in vivo to date.
Neighboring and Connectivity-Aware Routing in VANETs

A novel position-based routing protocol anchor-based connectivity-aware routing (ACAR) for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is proposed in this paper to ensure connectivity of routes with more successfully delivered packets. Both buses and cars are considered as vehicular nodes running in both clockwise and anticlockwise directions in a city scenario. Both directions are taken into account for faster communication. ACAR is a hybrid protocol, using both the greedy forwarding approach and the store-carry-and-forward approach to minimize the packet drop rate on the basis of certain assumptions. Our solution to situations that occur when the network is sparse and when any (source or intermediate) node has left its initial position makes this protocol different from those existing in the literature. We consider only vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication in which both the source and destination nodes are moving vehicles. Also, no road-side units are considered. Finally, we compare our protocol with A-STAR (a plausible connectivity-aware routing protocol for city environments), and simulation results in NS-2 show improvement in the number of packets delivered to the destination using fewer hops. Also, we show that ACAR has more successfully-delivered long-distance packets with reasonable packet delay than A-STAR.
Implementation and Test of B.R.A.S.I.L: An Epilepsy Computer-Aided Diagnosis Toolkit

It may be difficult to detect the epileptic focus through a simple visual interpretation of ictal and periictal SPECT images, placed side-by-side, especially in patients with extra-temporal or non-localizable intractable epilepsy. Surgery is an important option in the treatment of these epileptic patients. Our methodology aids planning the surgical process. It is a variation of SISCOM methodology. The ictal and periictal images are subtracted, after the registration with MR. The next step is calculate the mean and standard deviation in subtracted SPECT image, the voxel values below the mean plus two standard deviations are ignored (zeroed). We developed 400 phantoms to test this methodology with 4 spheres that suffered alteration in theirs voxels values. Alterations had varied from 5% up to 25%, with steps of 5 units. Results have shown that our method had 71.60% and 93.16% of average sensitivity in alterations of 5% and 25%, respectively. Moreover, our technique has been preliminary validated by clinical and surgical outcome of epileptic patients and with other neurological disorders and the results corroborate the potential of the methodology in clinical routine.
Sex-Differences, Handedness, and Lateralization in the Iowa Gambling Task

In a widely used decision-making task, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), male performance is observed to be superior to that of females, and is attributed to right lateralization (i.e., right hemispheric dominance). It is as yet unknown whether sex-differences in affect and motor lateralization have implications for sex-specific lateralization in the IGT, and specifically, whether sex-difference in performance in the IGT changes with right-handedness or with affect lateralization (decision valence, and valence-directed motivation). The present study (N = 320; 160 males) examined the effects of right-handedness (right-handedness vs. non-right-handedness) as a measure of motor lateralization, decision valence (reward vs. punishment IGT), and valence-directedness of task motivation (valence-directed vs. non-directed instructions), as measures of affective lateralization on IGT decision making. Analyses of variance revealed that both male and female participants showed valence-induced inconsistencies in advantageous decision-making; however, right-handed females made more disadvantageous decisions in a reward IGT. These results suggest that IGT decision-making may be largely right-lateralized in right-handed males, and show that sex and lateralized differences (motor and affect) have implications for sex-differences in IGT decision-making. Implications of the results are discussed with reference to lateralization and sex-differences in cognition.
Secure Dynamic Program Repartitioning

Secure program partitioning has been introduced as a language-based technique to allow the distribution of data and computation across mutually untrusted hosts, while at the same time guaranteeing the protection of con dential data. Programs that have been annotated with security types are automatically partitioned by the compiler. The main drawback in this setting is that both the trust hierarchy and the set of hosts are xed once the program has been partitioned. This paper suggests an enhanced version of the partitioning framework, where the trust relation still remains xed, but the partitioning compiler becomes a part of the network and can recompile applications, thus allowing hosts to enter or leave the framework. We contend that this setting is superior to static partitioning, since it allows redistribution of data and computations. This is especially bene cial if the new host allows data and computations to better ful ll the trust requirements of the users. Erasure Policies ensure that the original host of the redistributed data or computation does not store the data any longer.
The Middlebrook—Dubos Haemagglutination Test and Its Haemolytic Modification in the Diagnosis of Tuberculosis

The detection of serum antibodies to M. tuberculosis by the agglutination of sheep's red cells previously sensitized with an aqueous extract of phenol-treated bacilli of the H 37/Rv strain was first reported by Middlebrook and Dubos (1948). The short series of tests using human and rabbit sera reported by these authors suggested that the reaction was specific. They showed also that the activity of the antigenic extract was associated with the polysaccharide fraction and that a sample of deglycerinated old tuberculin was equally capable of acting as the sensitizing agent. These findings were confirmed and extended by Gernez-Rieux and Tacquet (1949, 1950a and b) and by Sievers, Ulstrup, and Winblad (1950), using the same methods and antigenic extract as Middlebrook and Dubos. Many modifications of the test have been described.
A Hybrid Named Entity Recognition System for South and South East Asian Languages

In this paper we describe a hybrid system that applies Maximum Entropy model (MaxEnt), language specific rules and gazetteers to the task of Named Entity Recognition (NER) in Indian languages designed for the IJCNLP NERSSEAL shared task. Starting with Named Entity (NE) annotated corpora and a set of features we first build a baseline NER system. Then some language specific rules are added to the system to recognize some specific NE classes. Also we have added some gazetteers and context patterns to the system to increase the performance. As identification of rules and context patterns requires language knowledge, we were able to prepare rules and identify context patterns for Hindi and Bengali only. For the other languages the system uses the MaxEnt model only. After preparing the one-level NER system, we have applied a set of rules to identify the nested entities. The system is able to recognize 12 classes of NEs with 65.13% f-value in Hindi, 65.96% f-value in Bengali and 44.65%, 18.74%, and 35.47% f-value in Oriya, Telugu and Urdu respectively.