Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reflections towards a generative theory of musical parallelism

Parallelism plays a core role in Lerdahl and Jackendoff's (1983) GTTM, as it rules the emergence of motivic, metrical, grouping and even formal structures. Due to the high amount of detail and complexity characterising associational structures, neither explicit model nor systematic methodology of parallelism-based structural inference has been included into the GTTM. This paper develops a methodological and computational answer to this problem founded on a computational modelling of pattern extraction operations. The paper focuses in particular on the methodological interest of the pattern mining formalism, and in particular its application to the formalisation of grouping and metrical structure inference and to the understanding of the possible interdependences, between these two levels of representation, but also more generally between parallelism and phenomenal accents. Concerning grouping structures, an attenuation of the strong hierarchy postulate is suggested, opening the framework to the study of structural polysemy and polyphony. A generalisation of the pattern mining formalism indicates a bottom-up understanding of musical variation and ornamentation, through the construction of a syntagmatic network whose connectivity is constrained by basic tonal principles.
Small but Nasty Logic Synthesis Examples

A method to find hard logic synthesis examples with known upper bound is presented. The circuits can be small and yet difficult to synthesize. Any area-related metric can be used in finding the circuits and testing synthesis tools. The hardness of the examples is robust with respect to the metric used and to minor alterations in the circuit.
Genotoxic action of the sesquiterpene lactone glaucolide B on mammalian cells in vitro and in vivo

Glaucolide B is a sesquiterpene lactone isolated from Vernonia eremophila Mart. (Vernonieae, Asteraceae) and has schistosomicidal, antimicrobial and analgesic activities. This study examined the cytotoxic and clastogenic activities of glaucolide B in human cultured lymphocytes and in bone marrow cells from BALB/c mice. The mitotic index (MI) and chromosomal aberrations were analyzed in both of the above systems, whereas sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) and the proliferation index (PI) were determined only in vitro. In human cultured lymphocytes, glaucolide B concentrations greater than 15 µg/ml of culture medium completely inhibited cell growth. At 4 µg/ml and 8 µg/ml of culture medium, glaucolide B significantly increased the frequency of chromosomal aberrations in lymphocytes and was also cytotoxic at concentrations ³8 µg/ml; there was no increase in the frequency of SCE. Glaucolide B (160-640 mg/kg) did not significantly increase the frequency of chromosomal aberrations in mouse bone marrow cells nor did it affect cell division. Since glaucolide B showed no clastogenic action on mammalian cells in vivo but was cytotoxic and clastogenic in vitro, caution is needed in its medicinal use.
Immunohistochemical Antibody Cocktail Staining (p63/HMWCK/AMACR) of Ductal Adenocarcinoma and Gleason Pattern 4 Cribriform and Noncribriform Acinar Adenocarcinomas of the Prostate

Overexpression of alpha-methylacyl coenzyme A racemase (AMACR) in combination with absence of basal cell markers [ie, p63 and high molecular weight cytokeratin (HMWCK)] is typical of classic acinar prostatic adenocarcinoma. We studied the expression and diagnostic utility of p63/HMWCK/AMACR immunohistochemical cocktail staining in ductal adenocarcinoma and cribriform Gleason pattern 4 acinar prostate cancer and compared it to noncribriform Gleason pattern 4 acinar prostate cancer. One to 4 representative formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded archival tissue blocks from 62 radical prostatectomy specimens harboring prostate cancer of ductal (n=51), cribriform Gleason pattern 4 acinar (n=27), and noncribriform Gleason pattern 4 acinar adenocarcinoma (n=48) were included in this study. Immunohistochemistry was performed using a triple stain of AMACR, p63, and HMWCK. Only staining that was moderate or strong was considered positive. The percentage of staining intensity and the presence of occasional basal cells positive with p63/HMWCK were recorded in each histologic type of prostatic adenocarcinoma. Seventy-seven percent of ductal prostatic adenocarcinoma, 67% of cribriform acinar prostatic carcinoma, and 81% of noncribriform acinar prostatic carcinoma showed positive staining for AMACR. There was no statistically significant difference between AMACR staining among the 3 histologic types, although there was a trend for noncribriform acinar prostatic carcinoma to have greater expression of AMACR than cribriform acinar prostatic carcinoma (P=0.07). Staining was often heterogeneous, varying in staining intensities within the same histologic type of carcinoma. Basal cells were detectable by p63 and HMWCK in a patchy fashion in 31.4% (16/51) of ductal and 29.6% (8/27) of cribriform acinar carcinomas compared with 2.1% (1/48) of noncribriform acinar carcinomas. In summary: (1) the majority of prostatic ductal and cribriform acinar carcinomas strongly expressed AMACR, however, subpopulations of these prostatic carcinoma were either completely negative or only weakly positive; (2) AMACR staining was often heterogeneous in intensity in the same histologic type of tumor, even within the same case; (3) patchy basal cell staining in noncribriform acinar prostatic carcinoma is rare. In contrast, remnants of basal cells identified by p63/HMWCK were seen in a patchy fashion in a significant minority of both ductal and cribriform acinar prostatic adenocarcinoma, which most likely represents intraductal spread of tumor.
Assessment of Bone Age in Prepubertal Healthy Korean Children: Comparison among the Korean Standard Bone Age Chart, Greulich-Pyle Method, and Tanner-Whitehouse Method

Objective To compare the reliability of the Greulich-Pyle (GP) method, Tanner-Whitehouse 3 (TW3) method and Korean standard bone age chart (KS) in the evaluation of bone age of prepubertal healthy Korean children. Materials and Methods Left hand-wrist radiographs of 212 prepubertal healthy Korean children aged 7 to 12 years, obtained for the evaluation of the traumatic injury in emergency department, were analyzed by two observers. Bone age was estimated using the GP method, TW3 method and KS, and was calculated in months. The correlation between bone age measured by each method and chronological age of each child was analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient, scatterplot. The three methods were compared using one-way analysis of variance. Results Significant correlations were found between chronological age and bone age estimated by all three methods in whole group and in each gender (R2 ranged from 0.87 to 0.9, p < 0.01). Although bone age estimated by KS was slightly closer to chronological age than those estimated by the GP and TW3 methods, the difference between three methods was not statistically significant (p > 0.01). Conclusion The KS, GP, and TW3 methods show good reliability in the evaluation of bone age of prepubertal healthy Korean children without significant difference between them. Any are useful for evaluation of bone age in prepubertal healthy Korean children.
Social comparisons in rheumatoid arthritis: Accuracy and adaptational significance.

Social comparison statements were classified from the illness descriptions of 90 individuals with rheumatoid arthritis. Participants also completed questionnaires comparing their disease activity, functional status, and adjustment to that of the average person with this illness. Criterion measures of these social comparison attributes were also derived from the reports of patients and their health care providers. Fifteen percent of the sample made spontaneous downward social comparisons in describing their illness, and only one participant made an upward comparison. The participants who made downward social comparison statements did not differ from others on the criterion measures or in the conclusions they drew about their comparative health status. The conclusions drawn by patients about their comparative disease activity and comparative functional status were in significant agreement with their actual relative standing on the criterion measures of these attributes. Controlling for demographic character.
In vitro glial responses to nerve growth factor

Nerve growth factor (NGF) stimulates expression of the low affinity neurotrophin receptor p75NGFR mRNA in primary cultures of neonatal rat cortical type I astrocytes. Nerve growth factor treatment altered glial morphology in glial fibrillary acidic protein positive (GFAP+) cell cultures derived from newborn (P0) and 3‐day‐old (P3) rat pups. When P0‐ or P3‐derived primary glial cultures were serum‐deprived, in the presence of 200 pM NGF for 5 days, the flat polygonal glia present in culture assumed a fibrous morphology, an effect not seen in the untreated serum‐deprived controls. The NGF effect on astrocytic morphology was blocked by continuous serum treatment. Nerve growth factor did not stimulate astrocytic proliferation under these culture conditions, as assayed by cell cycle analysis using 3H thymidine autoradiography. P0‐derived primary glial cultures expressed the signal transducing neurotrophin receptors p145trkB and p140trka as determined by reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR). RT‐PCR products were identified by sequencing or restriction enzyme analysis. Astrocytes internalized 125I‐NGF at 37°C but not at 4°C, consistent with energy requirements for internalization. Also, internalization of 125I‐NGF was abolished by the addition of a 300‐1,000‐fold excess of unlabeled NGF. Thus, astroglial cells in culture internalize NGF through a specific receptor‐mediated process, express trkA and full‐length trkB mRNAs at low levels, and respond to exogenous NGF by expressing a fibrous morphology under serum‐free culture conditions. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
From Correlation to Hierarchy : Practical Topic Modeling via Spectral Inference

Topic models were originally applied in text analysis for extracting high-level themes from documents, but they work equally well in any setting where users select items from an inventory. Recent work in spectral topic modeling has provided algorithms that operate only on easily-collected summary statistics, rather than exhaustively iterating over the full dataset. The “anchor word” algorithms learn topics by decomposing the co-occurrence between pairs of words into a matrix of topics over words and a matrix of relations between topics. While these algorithms provide transparent inference and provable guarantees in addition to scalability, there are several known issues: inference can be infeasible for large vocabularies and cannot learn quality topics on noisy real data with high sensitivity to learning parameters . In this paper, we solidify the foundations of anchor-based spectral inference and propose practical algorithms that can efficiently tackle each of these problems within the framework of Joint Stochastic Matrix Factorization. These algorithms preserve the provable guarantees and scalability of earlier algorithms, but are more consistent and more stable in identifying quality topics. In addition, this algorithm can also consider and learn meaningful correlations between topics, enabling correlated and hierarchical models. We demonstrate these methods on two text corpora, a corpus of user movie ratings, and a corpus of song playlists.
Millimeter Wave Communications With OAM-SM Scheme for Future Mobile Networks

The orbital angular momentum (OAM) technique provides a new degree of freedom for information transmissions in millimeter wave communications. Considering the spatial distribution characteristics of OAM beams, a new OAM spatial modulation (OAM-SM) millimeter wave communication system is first proposed for future mobile networks. Furthermore, the capacity, average bit error probability, and energy efficiency of OAM-SM millimeter wave communication systems are analytically derived for performance analysis. Compared with the OAM-based multi-input multi-output (MIMO) millimeter wave communication systems, the maximum energy efficiency of OAM-SM millimeter wave communication systems is improved by 227.2%. Moreover, numerical results indicate that the proposed OAM-SM millimeter wave communication systems are more robust to path-loss attenuations than the conventional MIMO millimeter wave communication systems, which makes it suitable for long-range transmissions. Therefore, OAM-SM millimeter wave communication systems provide a great growth space for future mobile networks.
STING/MPYS Mediates Host Defense against Listeria monocytogenes Infection by Regulating Ly6Chi Monocyte Migration

MPYS (also known as STING, MITA, and TMEM173) is a type I IFN stimulator that is essential for host defense against DNA virus infection and appears important in defense against certain bacteria. The in vivo significance and mechanisms by which MPYS mediates host defense against nonviral pathogens are unknown. Using an MPYS-deficient mouse (Tmem173), we determined that, distinct from the IFNAR−/− mice, MPYS deficiency leads to increased bacterial burden in the liver upon Listeria monocytogenes infection. The increase was correlated with the diminished MCP-1 and MCP-3 chemokine production and decreased blood and liver Ly6Chi monocyte frequency. We further demonstrate that MPYS-deficient Ly6Chi monocytes are intrinsically defective in migration to the liver. Lastly, adoptive transfer of wild-type Ly6Chi monocyte into MPYS-deficient mice decreases their liver bacterial burden. Our findings reveal a novel in vivo function of MPYS that is distinct from its role in activating type I IFN production.
Relationship of Body Fat Distribution to Metabolic Complications in Obese Prepubertal Boys: Gender Related Differences

ABSTRACT. Our purpose was to assess the relationship of obesity and body fat distribution to serum glucose values, insulin concentration and insulin resistance in obese prepubertal boys. Thirteen obese and 15 control prepubertal boys were studied. Biceps, triceps, subscapular and supra‐iliac skin fold thicknesses were measured. Percentage of body fat and total body fat were calculated. Body fat distribution was assessed by analyzing the central (supra‐iliac, subscapu‐lar)/peripheral (biceps, triceps) ratios. During an oral glucose tolerance test, serum glucose and insulin were measured and insulin/glucose was calculated. Body fat data and body fat distribution indices were significantly higher in the obese group. The obese population presented significantly elevated values of insulin and insulin/glucose. In the obese group insulin showed significant correlations with percentage of body fat, total body fat and subscapular skin fold thickness, whereas insulin/glucose had significant positive correlations with percentage of body fat, total body fat and supra‐iliac skin fold thickness. In obese boys significant positive correlations were also shown by subscapular/supra‐iliac with insulin and insulin/glucose, and by subscapular/triceps with insulin. In prepubertal boys obesity is centripetal and an upper central body fat distribution seems to be first associated with an abnormal glucose‐insulin homeostasis.
IFN-gamma and LPS-mediated IL-10-dependent suppression of retinal microglial activation.

PURPOSE Human retinal microglia (MG) express constitutively major histocompatability complex (MHC) class II molecules and have thus been highlighted as potential immunocompetent antigen-presenting cells (APCs). This study was undertaken to characterize microglial expression of coaccessory molecules and the functional changes in antigen expression, cytokine production, migration, and phagocytosis after proinflammatory stimulation. METHODS Fresh donor retinal MG were obtained and isolated using a percoll density gradient technique. Phenotypic characteristics used for isolating rodent microglia were applied and modified. Coaccessory molecule expression and intracellular cytokine production were assessed using three-color flow cytometric analysis in both freshly isolated and interferon (IFN)gamma-lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated MG. Using five-millimeter retinal explants in culture, microglial migratory behavior, changes in cell surface antigen expression and phagocytic activity were documented. RESULTS MG could be clearly defined by the flow cytometric phenotype CD45low CD11b+ MHC class II+ CD86low CD40low. Freshly isolated MG showed mannose receptor-mediated uptake of dextran-FITC. MG migrated from explants, were adherent, and upregulated MHC class II expression. After IFNgamma-LPS stimulation of single-cell suspension of MG isolates, MHC class II expression was reduced, with an increase occurring in MG intracellular interleukin (IL)-10 and IL-10 production. Microglial migration from explants was reduced after IFNgamma-LPS stimulation. CONCLUSIONS These results highlight both phenotypic and behavioral characteristics that support an antigen-processing and -presenting capability of freshly isolated MG. However, proinflammatory stimulation with IFNgamma-LPS induces an IL-10-mediated downregulation of cell surface antigen expression and loss of migratory and phagocytic activity. Therefore, although equipped to act as APCs, MG are able to rapidly modulate their own function and behavior and as a result may have the potential to limit inflammation.
Sensing Escherichia coli O157:H7 via frequency shift through a self-assembled monolayer based QCM immunosensor

By means of the specific immuno-recognition and ultra-sensitive mass detection, a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) biosensor for Escherichia coli O157:H7 detection was developed in this work. As a suitable surfactant, 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHDA) was introduced onto the Au surface of QCM, and then self-assembled with N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) raster as a reactive intermediate to provide an active interface for the specific antibody immobilization. The binding of target bacteria with the immobilized antibodies decreased the sensor’s resonant frequency, and the frequency shift was correlated to the bacterial concentration. The stepwise assembly of the immunosensor was characterized by means of the electrochemical techniques. Using the immersion-dry-immersion procedure, this QCM biosensor could detect 2.0×102 colony forming units (CFU)/ml E. coli O157:H7. In order to reduce the fabrication time, a polyelectrolyte layer-by-layer self-assembly (LBL-SA) method was adopted for fast construction. Finally, the reproducibility of this biosensor was discussed.
Temporal constraints on speech intelligibility as deduced from exceedingly sparse spectral representations

A novel means of quantifying the contribution of specific spectral bands for intelligibility is described. The spectrum of spoken English sentences is partitioned into one-third octave bands (“slits”) and the contribution of each of four slits ascertained independently and in combination with other slits distributed across the spectrum. The intelligibility baseline (four concurrent slits) yields ca. 85% intelligibility. The current study demonstrates that intelligibility progressively declines as the two central slits (2+3) are desynchronized between 25 and 250 ms. Beyond 250 ms intelligibility often declines even further but then begins to increase for greater degrees of asynchrony, suggesting the presence of a perceptual processing buffer of ca. 200-300 ms in duration. The utility of the spectral slit technique is also demonstrated for estimating the contribution towards intelligibility of different regions of the modulation spectrum. The mid-frequency (10-25 Hz) modulations are shown to be of particular significance for encoding speech information above 1.5 kHz. These two experiments demonstrate the power and utility of using circumscribed portions of the spectrum for quantitative evaluation of the contribution made by specific spectrotemporal properties of the speech signal.
Dual-input two-compartment pharmacokinetic model of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging in hepatocellular carcinoma.

AIM To investigate the feasibility of a dual-input two-compartment tracer kinetic model for evaluating tumorous microvascular properties in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS From January 2014 to April 2015, we prospectively measured and analyzed pharmacokinetic parameters [transfer constant (Ktrans), plasma flow (Fp), permeability surface area product (PS), efflux rate constant (kep), extravascular extracellular space volume ratio (ve), blood plasma volume ratio (vp), and hepatic perfusion index (HPI)] using dual-input two-compartment tracer kinetic models [a dual-input extended Tofts model and a dual-input 2-compartment exchange model (2CXM)] in 28 consecutive HCC patients. A well-known consensus that HCC is a hypervascular tumor supplied by the hepatic artery and the portal vein was used as a reference standard. A paired Student's t-test and a nonparametric paired Wilcoxon rank sum test were used to compare the equivalent pharmacokinetic parameters derived from the two models, and Pearson correlation analysis was also applied to observe the correlations among all equivalent parameters. The tumor size and pharmacokinetic parameters were tested by Pearson correlation analysis, while correlations among stage, tumor size and all pharmacokinetic parameters were assessed by Spearman correlation analysis. RESULTS The Fp value was greater than the PS value (FP = 1.07 mL/mL per minute, PS = 0.19 mL/mL per minute) in the dual-input 2CXM; HPI was 0.66 and 0.63 in the dual-input extended Tofts model and the dual-input 2CXM, respectively. There were no significant differences in the kep, vp, or HPI between the dual-input extended Tofts model and the dual-input 2CXM (P = 0.524, 0.569, and 0.622, respectively). All equivalent pharmacokinetic parameters, except for ve, were correlated in the two dual-input two-compartment pharmacokinetic models; both Fp and PS in the dual-input 2CXM were correlated with Ktrans derived from the dual-input extended Tofts model (P = 0.002, r = 0.566; P = 0.002, r = 0.570); kep, vp, and HPI between the two kinetic models were positively correlated (P = 0.001, r = 0.594; P = 0.0001, r = 0.686; P = 0.04, r = 0.391, respectively). In the dual input extended Tofts model, ve was significantly less than that in the dual input 2CXM (P = 0.004), and no significant correlation was seen between the two tracer kinetic models (P = 0.156, r = 0.276). Neither tumor size nor tumor stage was significantly correlated with any of the pharmacokinetic parameters obtained from the two models (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION A dual-input two-compartment pharmacokinetic model (a dual-input extended Tofts model and a dual-input 2CXM) can be used in assessing the microvascular physiopathological properties before the treatment of advanced HCC. The dual-input extended Tofts model may be more stable in measuring the ve; however, the dual-input 2CXM may be more detailed and accurate in measuring microvascular permeability.